CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Two former West Virginia correctional officers were sentenced to decades in prison on Wednesday for their roles in an assault that resulted in the death of an inmate.
Mark Holdren, 41, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and Johnathan Walters, 33, was sentenced to 21 years in prison for the March 2022 attack in the Southern Regional Jail, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Quantez Burks, 37, was a pretrial detainee who died less than a day after he was booked into the jail in Beaver on a wanton endangerment charge, according to court documents.
When Burks tried to push past an officer to leave his housing unit, he was taken to an interview room where he was handcuffed and restrained while officers including Holdren and Walters assaulted him. Burks was struck in the head multiple times, kicked and pepper-sprayed, according