A former officer at the the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Northeast Philadelphia admitted to beating an inmate during a strip search in 2020, causing injuries so severe that the man needed emergency surgery, federal prosecutors said.
Four other corrections officers that authorities say were involved in the assault, who also falsified reports about the incident, could still face charges. The attack happened Oct. 6, 2020, and the inmate was a pretrial detainee who had been escorted to his cell around 9 p.m. for a strip search.
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Former correctional officer Ronald C. Granville, 42, told investigators that he and the other officers ordered the inmate to remove his clothing and then assaulted him inside his cell, injuring the man's face, ribs and scrotum, investigators said. In the month that followed, Granville and the other corrections officers involved turned in false reports about the incident.
Granville pleaded guilty in federal court on Monday to using excessive force and falsification of records. Last year, he resigned from the prison, at 7901 State Road in the city's Holmesburg neighborhood. The investigation into the four other correctional officers, who have not been identified, remains ongoing with the FBI Philadelphia Field Office and the Philadelphia Department of Prisons.
"A uniform and a badge do not provide a license to brutalize," U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero said. "The U.S. Attorney's Office and our partners at the FBI and DOJ's Civil Rights Division will devote the personnel and resources necessary to ensure that excessive force cases are investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
Granville is scheduled to be sentenced on April 25. At a maximum, he faces 30 years in prison and up to $500,000 in fines.
"While those behind bars may have lost their freedom, they retain their humanity — and their civil rights," said Jacqueline Maguire, special agent in charge of the FBI Philadelphia Field Office.