Messiah Nantwi was 22 years old when he died on March 1, 2025, after a violent encounter with New York state correction officers at Mid-State Correctional Facility in Marcy, near Utica. What officials initially investigated as an inmate death later became a criminal case accusing multiple correction officers of beating Nantwi and then trying to hide what happened.
According to the Associated Press, ten New York prison guards were charged in connection with Nantwi’s death. Prosecutors said the beating began in Nantwi’s room and continued even after he was handcuffed and later moved toward the infirmary.
The allegations were not limited to excessive force. Prosecutors said six officers were accused of assaulting Nantwi, while four others were accused of participating in a cover-up that included filing false reports, plotting to plant a makeshift knife, and cleaning blood from Nantwi’s room in an effort to destroy evidence.
Former correction officer Jonah Levi became the first officer to stand trial. In April 2026, a jury found Levi guilty of manslaughter, gang assault, conspiracy, and offering a false instrument for filing in connection with Nantwi’s death. He was acquitted of second-degree murder, according to the Associated Press.
In May 2026, Spectrum News reported that Oneida County Court Judge Michael Nolan sentenced Levi to the maximum 25 years in prison. Spectrum reported that Nantwi suffered traumatic brain injuries from blows to his head and at least 69 other blows to his body.
Another former Mid-State correction officer, Caleb Blair, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter shortly before his trial was scheduled to begin. The Associated Press reported that Blair agreed to serve 11 years in prison. On June 17, 2026, Spectrum News reported that Blair received that 11-year sentence.
Other former correction officers received lesser sentences tied to cover-up-related charges. Spectrum reported that Joshua Bartlett received three years in jail, Craig Klemick received nine months in Oneida County Jail, and Nathan Palmer received a one-year conditional discharge after cooperating with prosecutors.
Nantwi’s death also triggered a federal civil-rights lawsuit. The law firm representing his estate, Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP, said the lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of New York on June 17, 2025. The lawsuit alleges that at least eighteen correction officers either beat Nantwi or stood by and watched, and that officers turned body cameras off or positioned them away from the beating.
The case has drawn additional attention because it came only months after another incarcerated man, Robert Brooks, was fatally beaten at nearby Marcy Correctional Facility. Together, the cases have raised serious questions about violence, accountability, body-camera compliance, and cover-ups inside New York’s prison system.
Nantwi was incarcerated at the time of his death, but incarceration is not a license for correction officers to act as judge, jury, and executioner. The criminal convictions, guilty pleas, and civil lawsuit all point to the same disturbing issue: a 22-year-old man died inside a state prison after the people responsible for his custody allegedly turned a controlled environment into a deadly beating.
Sources
- Associated Press: NY prison guards beat an inmate to death then tried to cover it up, prosecutors say
- Associated Press: Former New York prison guard found guilty of manslaughter
- Spectrum News: Jonah Levi sentenced to 25 years
- Associated Press: Caleb Blair pleads guilty to manslaughter
- Spectrum News: Four former Mid-State correction officers sentenced
- ECBAWM: Federal lawsuit filed over killing of Messiah Nantwi
