Four BOP Guards Sentenced for Three Federal Prisoner Assaults at Kentucky Lockup
A former guard supervisor at the U.S. Penitentiary in Big Sandy, Kentucky, was sentenced to five and a half years in federal prison on December 6, 2023, for covering up three prisoner assaults by fellow guards. The federal court for the Eastern District of Kentucky also ordered Kevin C. Pearce, Jr., 39, to serve a year of supervised release and pay a $100 special assessment.
A jury found him guilty on March 13, 2023, of falsifying reports after two prisoners were beaten by two of Pearce’s subordinate guards, Samuel J. Patrick, 41, and Clinton L. Pauley, 42. They entered prosecution agreements in April 2023 and pleaded guilty to both assaults; in one on March 30, 2021, they used pepper spray to hose a compliant prisoner, identified as “E.G.”, because he was walking too slowly to suit them; in the second on April 29, 2021, they elbowed and punched prisoner “C.T.” after he requested protection from Black fellow prisoners in a gang he once affiliated with. The guards called the prisoner, who is white, a “race traitor” before beating him.
Afterward, all three guards pressured fellow staffers with the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to cover up the assaults. They succeeded with a fourth guard, Ryan Elliott, who agreed to be listed as a witness in the falsified report about the assault on “E.G.”—even though Elliott wasn’t there. He admitted that in a plea agreement entered on November 21, 2023, when he also confessed to unjustifiably beating a prisoner identified as “N.D.” on March 26, 2021. Covering up that assault was then also charged against the other three guards in a superseding indictment.
Patrick and Pauly were sentenced on November 8, 2023, to 36 and 42 months in prison, respectively. Each was also ordered to serve a year of supervised release and pay a $100 special assessment. See: United States v. Patrick, USDC (E.D. Ky.), Case No. 7:22-cr-00009. On March 14, 2024, Elliott became the last of the four sentenced, receiving a term of 12 months and a day in prison concurrent with 12 months of supervised release, plus a $200 special assessment. See: United States v. Elliott, USDC (E.D. Ky.), Case No. 7:23-cr-00018.
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