In upstate New York, opening statements began Tuesday in the trial of former prison guard Jonah Levi, charged with murder in the death of inmate Messiah Nantwi after a beating at Mid-State Correctional Facility. Prosecutors told jurors that Levi repeatedly stomped on Nantwi’s head during an attack by multiple guards on March 1, 2025, an incident they described as resulting in Nantwi’s death from massive head trauma and other injuries.
Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, serving as special prosecutor, said prosecutors would rely on witness accounts and physical evidence as the case is presented to a jury for the first time. He told jurors that investigators collected DNA evidence from boots taken from Levi and from a second guard who faces a top charge of second-degree murder.
Fitzpatrick also described what he said the jury would hear from eyewitness testimony, characterizing Levi’s actions as repeated stomping and describing other guards as not intervening. Prosecutors further told the jury that Nantwi, 22, suffered 69 separate body blows during the beatings, which authorities said involved guards using fists, boots and batons in a series of assaults in Nantwi’s room.
During testimony in the trial, Nicholas Mouzon, a National Guard member working at the prison that day, described his view of events from outside the room where the beating took place. Mouzon said Nantwi refused to leave a shower area for a bedside headcount, repeatedly saying, “What if I don’t want to?” He testified that Nantwi calmed down after National Guard backup was called.
Mouzon said he then saw a guard standing on Nantwi’s calves and striking his feet with a baton. He later testified that he saw Nantwi being carried out, adding that Nantwi’s eyes were closed and that Nantwi was making “aggravated dog noises,” which Mouzon described as growling.
Prosecutors said the incident unfolded in the wider context of a three-week wildcat strike by guards that disrupted operations at New York prisons and prompted the governor to send in National Guard troops. According to prosecutors, Levi was part of an emergency response team called to Nantwi’s room to assist after National Guard members sought backup when Nantwi resisted a headcount procedure.
Prosecutors also told jurors that several corrections officers began beating Nantwi after he refused to be handcuffed and grabbed a guard’s vest, and that the beatings intensified after Nantwi bit a guard’s hand. Prosecutors further said guards falsely claimed a makeshift knife had been recovered as part of a cover-up effort.
Lewis G. Spicer, Levi’s attorney, told jurors the defense would present a different account of what happened and why force was used. Spicer said Nantwi’s behavior warranted intervention and told jurors that he did not use force that resulted in Nantwi’s death.
Spicer also told jurors the defense would challenge what prosecutors described as the event timeline, saying prosecutors offered an “extremely sanitized” version of events. He told the jury that Nantwi was high on synthetic marijuana and argued that Nantwi was the initial aggressor, adding, “You’re going to hear him fighting back.”
The case is the first guard trial stemming from the indictments of 11 guards tied to Nantwi’s death, prosecutors said. Authorities said more than half a dozen other guards have pleaded guilty to lesser charges related to the incident and the alleged cover-up.
Prosecutors and defense also addressed how the jury will weigh evidence, including video. While a prior fatal beating involving Robert Brooks was captured on body cameras, prosecutors said video may play less of a role in the Nantwi case because some guards involved were not wearing mandated body cameras, or turned them off, or looked the other way.
Nantwi entered the state prison system in May 2024 and had been serving a five-year sentence for second-degree criminal possession of a weapon tied to an exchange of gunfire with police officers in 2021, prosecutors said. Prosecutors in Manhattan said Nantwi shot and killed Jaylen Duncan, 19, in Harlem in April 2023 and then shot and killed Brandon Brunson, 36, the next evening at a Harlem smoke shop, according to the trial accounts.
Besides murder, prosecutors said Levi faces additional charges including first-degree manslaughter, first-degree gang assault, second-degree gang assault, fifth-degree conspiracy and first-degree offering a false instrument for file. The trial is expected to continue as jurors hear testimony and evidence from witnesses and investigators.