Prison guard who punched inmate and lied gets three months in federal prison

A former corrections officer at Green Haven prison who sucker-punched an inmate in the face and then falsely reported he had been hit first was sentenced Wednesday to three months in federal prison.

Taj Everly, 33, of Cortlandt Manor, had hoped for no more than probation with home detention, citing his otherwise stellar work record, the stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, his acceptance of responsibility and that he has already suffered with the loss of his desired career.

But while U.S. District Judge Nelson Roman gave him a break from the 2 to 2 1/2 years called for in sentencing guidelines, he found he could not spare him incarceration for the assault, and more significantly, the cover-up afterwards. He gave Everly more than three months to surrender and imposed three years of supervised release once the prison term ends.

Everly pleaded guilty this year to deprivation of constitutional rights under color of law in connection with the May 28, 2020, incident at the prison in Stormville.

Defense lawyer Andrew Rubin argued in a sentencing memo and again in court Wednesday that Everly’s actions were wrong but that he was not entirely unprovoked when he punched the inmate. He said that earlier that day the inmate, Eion Thom, had refused an order from a female corrections officer until Everly came over and got him to comply. Thom expressed some veiled threats of hurting Everly in the future. So when Everly saw him later that day he decided “to preemptively send a message to Mr. Thom that attacking him would be a bad idea.”

“Realizing that he had no actual right to engage in that type of physical force, he panicked and concocted a story that Thom hit him first out of fear of losing his livelihood as a result of his actions,” Rubin wrote.

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The incident came six months after Everly had been slashed in the head by another inmate. But Rubin said Everly had mostly acted out of the extreme stress resulting from the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had already claimed a grandmother, an aunt and a friend. He was regularly working 16-hour shifts and he feared bringing the disease home to his wife and two young children.

Everly acknowledged his wrongdoing at a disciplinary hearing the following month and later resigned after less than five years on the job.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Kaiya Arroyo, who sought a prison term within the guidelines, said Everly only took responsibility once he learned that there was body-cam footage of the assault. She said that while some force is expected in prison, the tremendous power balance that exists there means correction officers cannot act as Everly did.

Thom, who was serving a sentence for a drug conviction, was not seriously hurt. He was paroled in October 2020 and died less than six months later when he was shot during an argument in Brooklyn.

Since losing his job, Everly has been working as a caddie at Quaker Ridge Golf Club in Scarsdale and as a counselor at Woodfield Cottage, Westchester's juvenile detention facility. Among those who wrote letters on his behalf to the judge was a retired Greenburgh detective who has known Everly since he was in high school. Others included inmates at Green Haven who attested to his respecteful demeanor, one thanking Everly for convincing him to set aside gang life and pursue a college education.

Rubin said it was particularly important for Everly not to be incarcerated because he is the main provider for his wife and kids.

"He's a decent man, Judge, who did a bad thing," Rubin said.

Everly apologized to Thom's family, as well as to his own loved ones for putting them through the ordeal of a criminal prosecution. He said it has been both a "gift and a curse", that he has learned "not to abuse my power, not to abuse my blessings."

"I can't imagine not being there waking up with my kids every day," he told the judge. "But I understand what I did was wrong and I'm here to take accountability."

Arroyo and Assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsey Keenan said in their sentencing memo that incarceration was appropriate to deter other corrections officers from acting as Everly did.

"The criminal civil rights laws are intended for the precise circumstances before the Court in this case: for the protection of vulnerable citizens from the willful actions of those who would use positions of authority as platforms for abuse," the prosecutors wrote in their sentencing submission.

Rubin said Everly's loss of employment, pension and health benefits was sufficient deterrence against prison guards following his lead.

And he assailed prosecutors for asking Roman to rely on the sentences imposed on a selection of corrections officers convicted for improper use of force. Rubin said all of them involved far more egregious behavior by the guards, including the use of weapons against restrained prisoners, with some of the attacks ending in death.

Roman did rely on one of those cases, one in which he also sentenced another Green Haven correctional officer, Arthur Finn, to three months in prison for repeatedly bashing a handcuffed inmate's head against a wall and cell bars. Although the inmate in that case was injured more seriously than Thom, there was no similar cover-up as with Everly, Roman posited.

At Rubin's request, he delayed the surrender date until Jan. 5 so that Everly can spend the holidays with his family and also earn enough money to pay the family's rent while he is incarcerated.

Everly’s supervisor, Sgt. Rosita Rossy, was also charged in the case and is awaiting trial. She is accused of filing a false report about Everly’s actions and getting two others under her command to do the same.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Ex-prison guard faces sentencing for punching inmate, covering it up