A jail guard from Riker Island, New York pleaded guilty over falsifying logbook. The falsification was made in an attempt to conceal the fact that she skipped her rounds. The said concealment lead to a mentally ill inmate dead on a high heat temperature cell.
According to Reuters, Carol Lackner, 36 years old pleaded guilty in state Supreme Court in the Bronx to one count of first-degree falsifying business records and was sentenced to five years of probation. The guard was also initially indicted in December 2014 over the death of Jerome Murdough, 56 who died on a 101 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) heated cell on February 2014.
Murdough's mother agreed to a $2.25 million settlement with the city. According to the city medical examiner, the victim died on hyperthermia as he was exposed in the heat for a long period of time and was not a case of homicide.
Lakner falsify the record by indicating she had checked on the victim who was a homeless former Marine, as well as other Rikers Island jail complex inmates, every half-hour on Feb. 14, 2014. However, prosecutors said, no video surveillance that shows she was has done it, Houston Chronicle reported.
Murdough "basically baked to death" inside the overheated cell after he was left unchecked for at least four hours overnight. Malfunctioning equipment caused his cell to overheat, according to Huffington Post.
The commissioner of the New York City Department of Investigation, Mark Peters said in a statement that Lackner "ignored her responsibilities as a correction officer, failing to perform required checks and leaving her shift prematurely, while an inmate under her watch died in his cell."
It was also reported that Lackner had been disciplined by jail officials four years before Murdough's death for abandoning her post and leaving the sprawling jail complex. The guard was also one of the Rikers staffs who have been charged with crimes including assault and smuggling over the past two years.
