A former corrections officer has been found guilty of manslaughter in the fatal beating of an inmate at Mid-State Correctional Facility in upstate New York. Jonah Levi was convicted on Wednesday by a jury in Utica, which also found him guilty of gang assault and conspiracy in the death of 22-year-old Messiah Nantwi on 1 March 2025, as well as in the subsequent cover-up. He was acquitted of the more serious charge of second-degree murder.
Prosecutors said Nantwi was struck dozens of times by guards using their fists, boots and batons, sustaining massive head trauma and other bodily injuries that proved fatal. The attack occurred during a wildcat strike by many officers, which had prompted the governor to deploy National Guard members to help maintain order. Nantwi's death came just months after another inmate, Robert Brooks, was fatally beaten at a separate prison across the road from Mid-State.
Levi was part of an emergency response team called to Nantwi's housing unit after National Guard members requested backup during a prisoner headcount, when Nantwi was said to be uncooperative. One witness testified that Nantwi had calmed down before the reinforcements arrived. According to the prosecution, the officers began beating Nantwi in his room after he refused to be handcuffed and grabbed a guard's vest, with the violence escalating after Nantwi bit a guard's hand.
Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick told jurors that Levi had stomped on Nantwi's head multiple times and had taken part in a cover-up by guards. “The evidence of guilt here, ladies and gentlemen, is simple and it's overwhelming. Stomp on someone's head, you're not trying to get their attention,” Fitzpatrick said in closing arguments. “You've divorced yourself from the human race.” Levi's defence attorney, Lewis G. Spicer, argued that his client had not used force that caused Nantwi's death, stating: “Jonah Levi did not kick Messiah Nantwi in the head.”
More than half a dozen other individuals have pleaded guilty to lesser charges linked to the beating and alleged cover-up. A former guard charged with murder, Caleb Blair, is scheduled to stand trial on 4 May, alongside a co-defendant facing first-degree manslaughter. Another guard charged with manslaughter is due to face trial on 1 June. Nantwi had entered the state prison system in May 2024, serving a five-year sentence for second-degree criminal possession of a weapon related to a 2021 exchange of gunfire with police, in which he was shot multiple times and the officers were unharmed.
