A former New York corrections officer pleaded guilty to manslaughter on Monday for his role in the beating death of a 22-year-old inmate, entering the plea moments before jury selection was to begin in Utica and accepting an 11-year prison sentence that brings one of the state’s highest-profile prison‑brutality cases closer to resolution.
Caleb Blair, one of more than a dozen officers charged in connection with the March 1, 2025, killing of Messiah Nantwi at the Mid‑State Correctional Facility, admitted to the reduced charge in Oneida County Court. Prosecutors said Nantwi was struck 69 times with fists, boots, and batons by multiple guards after the young man objected to being handcuffed while resisting a prisoner headcount. The blows caused massive head trauma and other injuries that killed him.
Blair had originally faced a charge of second‑degree murder — the most serious count brought against any of the indicted officers — and his plea to first‑degree manslaughter came just as attorneys were preparing to select a jury. He will be sentenced on June 17.
“I’m satisfied that justice was done,” said Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, who prosecuted the case. Fitzpatrick stressed that the outcome alone was not enough. “There has to be systemic changes in the facilities regarding relationships between [corrections officers] and incarcerated individuals, and I hope that people just don’t turn the page.”
Blair’s defense lawyer, William Sullivan, said his client was taking responsibility. He described Blair as a model officer with no prior discipline and noted his service in the National Guard overseas. “It was a terrible combination of eight minutes, six minutes, in that cell that ruined an otherwise exemplary life,” Sullivan said.
The plea is the latest in a cascade of convictions stemming from Nantwi’s death. Another former officer, Jonah Levi — whom prosecutors identified as one of the guards who inflicted head wounds — was convicted of manslaughter and other crimes by a jury in April and awaits sentencing. A third former guard, Craig Klemick, pleaded guilty on Friday to offering a false instrument for filing, a charge often used for lying in official reports. Several other former officers have already pleaded guilty to assault or cover‑up charges, leaving only one defendant still awaiting trial. An initial indictment accused six officers of assaulting Nantwi and four others of attempting to conceal evidence by filing false reports, plotting to plant a makeshift knife, and cleaning up blood in Nantwi’s room.
Attorneys for Nantwi’s family, Earl Ward and Katie Rosenfeld, said the family’s central demand was accountability. “Most of the defendants here are going to jail,” they said in a statement. “And hopefully the impact of that will resonate throughout the state prisons, which for far too long have tolerated and turned a blind eye to violence against inmates.”
The fatal beating unfolded during a wildcat strike by many corrections officers that forced Gov. Kathy Hochul to send National Guard troops into prisons to maintain order. Nantwi’s death came only a few months after Robert Brooks was fatally beaten at a prison just across the road from Mid‑State, deepening demands from advocates and lawmakers for an overhaul of the state’s corrections system.