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| Men Plead No Contest in Inmate Beating |
| By News Herald |
| Published: 06/19/2003 |
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Two men entered pleas June 9 to their involvement in the death of a Bay County, Fla., Jail inmate in October. Carlos King, 31, and Ronald Lawson, 25, both face five years in prison after pleading no contest to lesser charges than the second-degree murder they were facing. Chad Littles, 18, died Oct. 6 while being held at the Bay County Jail Annex. Investigators said six inmates beat Littles to death when they thought he was an informant for the officers. King, Lawson, Nicholas Hulsey, 22; Malachi Najair, 25; Larry K. Burks, 18; and Jeremiah Samuel Hinsey, 20, were charged with his murder. King pleaded no contest last week to aggravated assault. He was accused of barring Littles' escape from a group of inmates who had attacked him. It was while Littles was facing King, investigators said, an inmate swept Littles' legs out from under him. Littles was kicked and beaten while he was down. Little died from a head injury. Lawson was one of the men accused of kicking Littles. He pleaded no contest to felony battery. No contest means the men don't admit their guilt, only that the state could prove they did the crime. Circuit Judge Don T. Sirmons accepted the men's pleas and scheduled sentencing for a time after the other four defendants' cases are resolved. Lawson and King agreed to testify if needed against the other four. Both men will be sentenced to five years in prison as a part of the plea agreement. Lawson will be transferred to a jail out of the county for his own protection. King told Sirmons he feels safe at the Bay County Jail. King still has charges pending from unrelated allegations. Littles' mother, Frances Hughes, and a representative from the attorney's office handling her lawsuit against the jail's corporate owner, Corrections Corporation of America, were in the audience to see King and Lawson change their pleas. Hughes said only that the situation was too complicated and confusing for her to make much sense of it. She declined to comment until all the cases are resolved. Hughes said in her lawsuit that CCA failed to provide the proper number of officers or monitoring equipment for the cell block, or train the officers properly. She sued for damages on her behalf, for Littles' son and Littles' estate. CCA said in October that jail personnel weren't responsible in any way for Littles' death. The morning of Oct. 6, officers conducted a routine security inspection in Littles' cell pod, which was completed five minutes later. Two minutes after officers left the minimum-security pod, an inmate came to the front of the pod and told the officers that an inmate was down, according to CCA. |
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