Federal Inmate Convicted Of First-Degree Murder

United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, announced today the conviction of DANIEL V. SMITH of first-degree murder.  SMITH was convicted by a jury following a trial before U.S. District Judge Philip M. Halpern and will be sentenced on December 4, 2025.  SMITH faces a mandatory life sentence.

“Daniel V. Smith murdered a fellow inmate in cold blood at FCI Otisville by brutally beating him in the head with a lock tied to a belt,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton.  “Thanks to the career prosecutors of this Office and our law enforcement partners, the defendant has been held accountable for his heinous crime.”

According to the Indictment, court filings, and statements made in court:

On October 26, 2021, SMITH was incarcerated at FCI Otisville, where he was serving a sentence related to a prior assault he committed in 2013 while incarcerated.  To obtain a transfer to a different housing unit, SMITH, without provocation, brutally attacked another inmate—housed in the cell next to his own—by swinging a lock tied to a belt and striking his victim in the head repeatedly, cracking open the victim’s skull.  The inmate suffered traumatic brain injury, fell into a vegetative state, and died from his injuries.

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SMITH, 65, of Otisville, New York, was convicted of one count of murder in the first degree, which carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison.

Mr. Clayton thanked the staff of FCI Otisville for their assistance and praised the investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Hudson Valley Safe Streets Task Force.

This case is being prosecuted by the Office’s White Plains Division.  Assistant U.S. Attorneys Justin L. Brooke, Shaun E. Werbelow, Benjamin D. Klein, Jeffrey C. Coffman, with the assistance of Paralegal Specialist Jackie Fleury, are in charge of the prosecution.