SERGEANT WHO LED PRISON BEAT-UP SQUAD THAT KILLED MESSIAH NANTWI PLEADS GUILTY
FRANCIS CHANDLER IS THE FIRST STATE PRISON GUARD TO PLEAD GUILTY TO HELPING BEAT MESSIAH NANTWI TO DEATH AT THE MID-STATE CORRECTIONAL FACILITY ON MAR. 1, 2025
Francis Chandler surrounded by family and friends speaks with a court officer charged with preparing a pre-sentence report on Chandler for the court before he is sentenced on Jan. 16, 2026. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
UTICA, NEW YORK Oct. 16, 2025
A white former New York State corrections sergeant pleaded guilty to gang assault for killing a black prisoner.
Francis Chandler admitted he was "acting in concert" with a group of other white guards when they beat Messiah Nantwi to death at the Mid-State Correctional Facility on Mar. 1.
Nantwi's killing took place less than three months after another "beat-up squad" of white guards killed Robert Brooks at the Marcy Correctional Facility on Dec. 9, 2024—directly across the road from Mid-State.
Nantwi’s killing took place on the 15th day of a wildcat strike by guards that saw National Guard troops replace strikers. Some guards continued working. Members of Mid-State’s prison SWAT team—called a Corrections Emergency Response Team or"CERT" for short—who stayed on the job killed Nantwi.
Special Prosecutor Onondaga County District Attorney William F. Fitzpatrick called Nantwi's killing "a murder so depraved and so wanton and disregarding of human life that New York law allows it to rise to the level of intentional murder” at a news conference following the defendants' Apr. 16 arraignments.
The 22-year-old was "beaten with fists, batons and boots" for at least five minutes in three different locations within the prison, according to the indictment issued against the guards by an Oneida County Grand Jury. During the attack, guards were ”kicking him and stomping on his head.”
"None of them,” Fitzpatrick said, ”were wearing mandated body-worn cameras.”
Supporters of accused state prison guard Francis Chandler hug outside the courtroom after he pleaded guilty to gang assault in exhange for a promised 4-year sentence. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
Guards Jonah Levi and Caleb Blair were charged with murder. Levi and Blair were also charged with first degree manslaughter, along with guards Thomas Eck, Criag Klemick and Daniel Burger. Chandler, and fellow Sgt. David Ferrone, were charged with second degree manslaughter for failing to stop the killing. All seven faced gang assault charges as well.
An additional three were charged with contributing to an attempted cover-up: Donald Slawson, Michael Iffert and Nicholas Vitale.
Nantwi, 22, was facing two murder charges and serving time for illegally possessing a handgun he allegedly used to shoot at three cops in the Bronx in 2021. The cops returned fire, hitting Nantwi several times but not killing him.
“The three Officers returned 31 shots, striking Nantwi multiple times,” police said. “The cops were not injured.”
Nantwi eventually pled guilty to criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree. While he was out on bail before he was sentenced, he allegedly murdered two people in 2023. Nantwi was waiting to be tried for those crimes, while he served a five year sentence for the gun case, public records say.
Nantwi was beaten by the CERT team when he “grabbed the vest” of a guard, according to the indictment against Chandler and the guards. The indictment also alleges Nantwi bit Blair and Eck during the fight. After that, guards beat Nantwi until he was “no longer responsive,” according to the indictment.
The squad also beat Nantwi while they dragged him handcuffed down a flight of stairs. They beat him a third time when he was “dumped in a holding cell” at the prison’s infirmary. That’s where Blair—one of the two guards charged with murder—beat Nantwi more, the indictment alleges.
Chandler was there and could have stopped the deadly assault but did not.
“These two sergeants in a supervisory role in Mr. Nantwi’s room did absolutely nothing to stop the beating he was enduring and offered absolutely no assistance to him,” Fitzpatrick said at the April news conference.
After the beating, Ferrone allowed the names of both Chandler and Levi to be left out of official use of force reports members of the group were required to file. They did so “to mislead those investigating the use of force,” the indictment alleges.
Ferrone also devised a plan to plant a shank in Nantwi’s cell. Eck volunteered to “find” it.
After killing Nantwi, the guards "concocted a scheme to posthumously plant a weapon in Mr. Nantwi's room" to cover-up the murder, Fitzpatrick alleged. A "body-worn camera caught two of the conspirators discussing" the scheme to plant a shank.
At the direction of Chandler, the group "assembled at RASPBERRIES, a local diner, for breakfast in order to develop and coordinate the false narrative that nothing improper was done to Messiah Nantwi," the indictment alleges.
Fitzpatrick called the botched cover-up "amateur and ineffective" at the news conference.
So far, six guards including Chandler have pleaded guilty. Some agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and testify against other defendants if they go to trial.
Chandler pleaded guilty in a courtroom across from the courtroom where three of the guards who killed Brooks are on trial for murder, manslaughter, gang assault and filing false report charges.
Almost a dozen family and friends of Chandler filled benches in the courtroom behind him when he pled guilty.
Among them was a young woman with fingernails painted blue. She wept while Chandler answered "yes" to a series of questions Oneida County Court Judge Michael Nolan asked him to confirm his plea of guilty. An older woman stroked the young woman’s shoulders and hair to comfort her as she cried.
After the hearing, the women again embaraced in the courthouse hallway.
Judge Nolan scheduled Chandler's sentencing for Jan. 16, 2026 at 9:30AM.
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