WASHINGTON – Timothy Brandon Moore, a corrections officer with the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department, in Harrison County, Miss., pleaded guilty late yesterday to a one-count criminal information related to his role in obstructing a federal civil rights investigation into the death of an inmate at the Harrison County Adult Detention Center. Moore, who was charged with falsifying records that were part of a federal investigation, faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
In documents filed in federal court today, Moore admitted that he knowingly concealed the truth regarding an officer using excessive physical force against an inmate at the jail and that he falsified the account of how the inmate received his injuries. Moore admitted that it was his intent that this report would impede, obstruct and influence any investigation of the assault of the inmate.
Moore is the sixth Harrison County Sheriff’s Department Deputy to plead guilty to a crime related to the abuse of inmates at the jail since inmate Jessie Lee Williams Jr. died in custody on Feb. 4, 2006. Additionally, a federal grand jury indicted Ryan Michael Teel, James Ricky Gaston, Daniel Lamont Evans, and Karl Walter Stolze for a conspiracy to violate the civil rights of inmates at the jail. Their trial is set to begin on Aug. 6, 2007.
The Civil Rights Division is committed to the vigorous enforcement of every federal criminal civil rights statute, such as laws that prohibit the willful use of excessive force or other acts of misconduct by law enforcement officials. In fiscal year 2006, nearly 50 percent of the cases brought by the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division involved such prosecutions. Since fiscal year 2001, the Division has convicted 50 percent more defendants for excessive force and official misconduct than in the preceding six years.
Civil Rights Division prosecutors Lisa M. Krigsten and John Cotton Richmond handled this matter for the Department. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation assisted the Department of Justice in its investigation of this matter.
###
07-501