Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, said on Thursday that her office was recusing itself from the investigation it had opened into the fatal beating of a state prison inmate and that a special prosecutor would lead the inquiry instead.
Ms. James said in a video announcement that lawyers in her office were currently defending four of the 13 corrections officers implicated in the death of the man, Robert L. Brooks, in other matters.
In light of that, she said, she and her staff members had determined that recusal was necessary to ensure that the “mere appearance of a conflict” not “tie up a potential prosecution in lengthy legal challenges or get a potential prosecution outright dismissed.”
“I will not allow justice to be delayed or denied because of a conflict,” said Ms. James, who appointed William J. Fitzpatrick, the Onondaga County district attorney, as special prosecutor in the matter.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Fitzpatrick’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment; nor did Elizabeth Mazur, a lawyer for Mr. Brooks’s family.
The attorney general’s office is empowered to investigate deaths stemming from encounters with law enforcement authorities, including corrections officers. The office also typically represents state workers in litigation connected to their official duties.
Jennifer Scaife, the executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, a watchdog group, said on Thursday that Ms. James’s announcement raised questions about whether “the A.G. will ever be able to fully carry out that part of her power, given that she will likely be defending the state against actions of corrections officers for years to come.”
The recusal announcement came about a week after Ms. James released eight videos of the attack on Mr. Brooks, which occurred on Dec. 9 at the Marcy Correctional Facility. The attorney general said the behavior seen in the videos was “shocking and disturbing.”
The footage was filmed by body-worn cameras belonging to four officers. The videos do not include sound; the cameras do not record audio unless activated by an officer. It is unclear whether the officers knew the cameras were running during the attack.
Mr. Brooks, 43, was declared dead at a Utica hospital early on Dec. 10. The Onondaga County medical examiner’s office is conducting an autopsy and will determine the cause and manner of his death.
The videos show officers appearing to choke Mr. Brooks, who was handcuffed and shackled during the attack, at several points and forcefully picking him up and pushing him down by his throat.
State Police investigators said in court filings last month that “preliminary findings” from the medical examiner’s office showed “concern for asphyxia due to compression of the neck as the cause of death, as well as the death being due to actions of another.”
In addition to the inquiry that Mr. Fitzpatrick will now lead, the State Police, the corrections department’s Office of Special Investigations, the F.B.I. and the New York’s Commission of Correction are examining the circumstances surrounding Mr. Brooks’s death.
On Monday, Gov. Kathy Hochul installed a new superintendent at the Marcy prison after previously directing the state corrections commissioner to begin the process of firing the 13 officers and prison nurse implicated in Mr. Brooks’s death. One officer, Anthony Farina, has already resigned. The others have been suspended without pay.
The New York Times reported last month that several of the 13 officers had been previously accused in lawsuits of physically abusing other inmates.
In a court filing on Thursday seeking Mr. Fitzpatrick’s appointment, Ms. James’s office identified Officers Farina, Nicholas Anzalone and Robert Kessler and Sgt. Glenn Trombly as those it is representing in other actions who are implicated in Mr. Brooks’s death.
The four have been accused in federal suits of attacking and seriously injuring inmates without provocation.
Most recently, Corey W. Rasnick, 29, said in a lawsuit that he was incarcerated at the Marcy prison when Officer Kessler and several other guards roused him early on Sept. 25 and attacked him in an empty day room in an assault that left Mr. Rasnick with a broken arm.
Another man who was incarcerated at Marcy, Adam Bauer, 51, has accused Officer Anzalone and other guards in a lawsuit of beating him in a prison bathroom.
A sergeant involved in the attack slammed a clipboard against Mr. Bauer’s head so hard that the metal clasp tore a hole in his scalp, the suit says. Mr. Bauer claims he was later dragged from the prison, put in a van and taken to the infirmary, where, he says, he was forced to lie on the floor as Officer Anzalone kicked his feet.
The fatal beating at the Marcy prison, about 50 miles east of Syracuse, came to light on Dec. 15, when the corrections commissioner, Daniel F. Martuscello III, said that an unnamed inmate had died after a “use of force” by staff members.
Mr. Brooks had been serving a 12-year sentence after pleading guilty in Monroe County in 2017 to first-degree assault in the stabbing of a former girlfriend, according to state prison records and local news reports.
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