Three convicted in brutal Essex County jail beating that left man 'permanently impaired'

A jury convicted three men Wednesday on charges related to a brutal attack on a fellow detainee in the Essex County Correctional Facility, which served as a flashpoint for calls to reform the allegedly troubled jail and accusations that corrections officers failed to stop the near-fatal beating.

Byad Lockett and Darryl Watson were found guilty of attempted murder, second-degree aggravated assault, and weapons offenses in an attack on fellow inmate Jayshawn Boyd, 22, of Elizabeth, who was in the jail awaiting trial on a simple assault charge, according to the Essex County Prosecutor's Office and prior reports.

A third detainee, Isaad Jackson, was convicted on weapons charges, but jurors could not agree on pending attempted murder and assault charges in his ruling.

But Jackson, Lockett and Watson were just three of seven men seen kicking, punching and stomping on Boyd for two-minutes, all of which was captured on the facility's surveillance cameras, and reached its climax when Boyd's assailants dropped a microwave on his head, NorthJersey.com reported one month after the attack.

While Boyd survived the attack, he spent months in a coma and sustained brain damage, according to both prosecutors and an attorney for his family, Brooke Barnett, who filed a lawsuit against the county; its corrections commissioner; County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo, his chief of staff; the jail's director; its warden; mental health director; and a slew of corrections officers and health workers employed at the facility.

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"I've never seen anything that horrific. The Essex County jail is failing the people they pledged to protect, and failing to protect people's family members," Barnett previously said after viewing video of the September 2021 attempt on Boyd's life.

In an amended complaint filed in April 2022, Barnett claims her client, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, was arrested on two separate occasions in 2020, as a result of violent altercations with his family during psychotic episodes.

However, she was not available for comment on the convictions and her client's condition as of Friday. But the complaint alleges that Boyd was partially paralyzed, having permanently lost the use of his lower extremities. Additionally, it alleges that Boyd suffered traumatic brain injuries and has been deemed incapable of managing his own affairs, saying "the likelihood that he will ever return to ordinary functioning is virtually non-existent."

In the release announcing the convictions, Deputy Chief Assistant Prosecutor Justin Edwab said Boyd is permanently impaired as a result of the attack.

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"This attack was utterly senseless," Edwab said in a statement. "The victim was unconscious after sustaining serious head shots during the seven-on-one assault."

After Boyd's second arrest, a Union County judge ordered he be detained on a slew of charges ― including aggravated assault ― but ordered a psychological evaluation to determine whether he was fit to stand trial.

Psychiatrists at a state mental health facility in Trenton cleared him for trial, at which point Boyd was once again released pending his trial, until he was remanded to the Essex County jail in September 2021 for failing to appear at his sentencing after taking a plea deal for time served, a copy of the lawsuit states.

Exactly two weeks later, he would be pulled from the floor of the jail's "C-Pod" unit, which Barnett claims housed inmates known to be violent. His limp body was bloodied and beaten with a mop, a drink dispenser, a water jug and the microwave, long after he'd lost consciousness, as seen on the surveillance footage.

In their announcement of the convictions released Wednesday, Essex County prosecutors state the only corrections officer assigned to the C-Pod saw the attack, and left the unit for his safety and called for backup.

Prosecutors said they will seek sentences that run consecutively to the terms that Watson, Lockett, and Jackson are already serving or facing. Watson was previously convicted of murder and is facing sentencing, while Jackson is facing a separate homicide charge. Lockett is currently serving a 12-year sentence after being convicted on conspiracy to commit murder.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Essex County NJ jail inmates convicted in brutal attack