Nathaniel Pack, 29, a former officer at the Southern Regional Jail in Beaver, West Virginia, pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy to violate the rights of inmates.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Pack admitted to using unreasonable and unjustified force against inmates and pretrial detainees as a form of retaliation and punishment.
The conspiracy spanned from approximately April 2020 through March 1, 2022, during which Pack and other officers targeted individuals they believed had engaged in misconduct.
The group deliberately brought inmates to known “blind spots” within the facility, which were specific areas not captured by surveillance cameras.
By using these locations, the officers aimed to assault inmates without being recorded, thereby avoiding accountability for their actions.
In one instance occurring in November 2020, Pack and his co-conspirators responded to a pretrial detainee, identified as J.D.H., who had been kicking his cell door.
After an initial use of force in the cell, the officers handcuffed J.D.H. and moved him to an interview room that served as a known blind spot.
While the inmate was handcuffed and posed no threat, Pack and other officers struck and punched him across his body, resulting in bodily injury. A similar assault took place in July 2021 involving another pretrial detainee, D.W.M., who had reportedly not followed verbal commands.
Officers brought D.W.M. to a blind spot interview room and struck him in the face and body while he was handcuffed.
The U.S. Department of Justice reported that these actions left D.W.M. with lacerations and bleeding about his head. In January 2022, Pack took an inmate identified as H.B. to a blind spot to punish him for using a slur against another officer.
Pack struck H.B. in the face before moving him to a second blind spot cell, where he repeatedly punched the handcuffed inmate.
In a particularly calculated incident on March 1, 2022, Pack responded to a call for assistance regarding a detainee named Q.B..
As co-conspirators took Q.B. into a blind spot interview room, Pack entered the medical unit to delay the response of healthcare workers.
According to the plea agreement, the former officer explicitly admitted that he misled medical personnel to facilitate further violence.
“The defendant told the staff to wait because the defendant wanted to give the co-conspirators time to use unreasonable force against Q.B. inside the interview room.”
To further the conspiracy, Pack and others prepared false reports that denied the use of unreasonable force.
These reports omitted injuries sustained by inmates to ensure the conspirators would not be investigated.
Pack entered his plea before U.S. Magistrate Judge Omar J. Aboulhosn and is scheduled for sentencing on Dec. 4. The former officer faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
The prosecution was handled by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of West Virginia.