THE ROBERT BROOKS FILES PART 4: THE GANG COP WHO BECAME A GANGSTER AND THE PRISONER WHO STOOD-UP TO HIM
TIMÉ THOMAS JR. SLUGGED IT OUT WITH ANTHONY FARINA IN 2020. FARINA LED THE BEAT-UP SQUAD THAT KILLED BROOKS IN 2024. 'THEY THE BIGGEST GANG,"‘ THOMAS SAYS.
Timé Thomas Jr., now 31, in an undated booking photo. Photo credit: Niagara County Sheriff’s Office.
MALONE, NEW YORK Mar. 17, 2026
EXCLUSIVE—Part 4 of The Robert Brooks Files, a multi-part investigation into the murder of Robert Brooks
Anthony R. Farina gained national infamy when an all-white gang of correction officers he was a member of were caught on body-camera video killing 43-year-old Robert Brooks in an upstate New York prison two years ago.
Farina distinguished himself by stuffing a rag down the helpless, handcuffed man's throat, and stomping repeatedly on his genitals.
Five years before that, Farina, then 44, met his match in a 190 pound, six-foot-tall 26-year-old from Buffalo who stood up to his villainy.
"He tried to choke me and I wasn't haven' it," Timé Thomas Jr., now 31, told The Free Lance News on Monday. "I threw the first punch."
That punch may have saved Thomas's life because, perversely, it earned him outlaw respect with Farina.
It also sealed its destruction. Thomas was serving time for a gun possession charge when he confronted Farina in 2020. Paroled in 2022, he was convicted in February of killing a man in 2024. He'll be sentenced in April.
Farina was the gang intelligence officer who became a gangster.
He helped lead the beat-up squad of prison guards that killed Brooks at the Marcy Correctional Facility outside Utica on Dec. 9, 2024. For more than five years before that, the squad Farina and Sgt. Glenn Trombly co-lead regularly beat prisoners and papered over the beatings with false reports.
Farina and the squad wore the blue uniform New York State prison guards wear, with American flags on their shoulders, but in reality they were a lawless gang that kept order with ruthless violence. Farina's 2020 confrontation with Thomas shows just how far Marcy's guards crossed over into evil—and how long supervisors ignored it.
"'The only difference between you and my guy,'" then-Sgt. Jarrad L. Brown allegedly told Thomas after the epic 2020 brawl, according to Thomas. "He's a gangster and you're a gangster. But the only difference is he's a white gangster and you're a black gangster.'"
Sgt. Brown was promoted to lieutenant in 2021. He was working at Marcy the night Brooks was murdered there by Farina and the gang in 2024, according to State Police investigation reports obtained by The Free Lance News.
Sgt. Trombly saw Lt. Brown in Marcy's infirmary after Brooks was killed there, Trombly told State Police investigators, according to the obtained reports. Sgt. Trombly also told the State Police Lt. Brown "told him to talk to the guys to 'help their story out.'"
Later that night, Lt. Brown again told Trombly to "go down there and make sure their stories are good, and their paperwork is good," Trombly told police.
Lt. Brown and Farina also telephoned and texted each other repeatedly after Brooks' murder, according to the State Police reports. Investigators seized both Brown's and Farina's mobile phones and discovered Farina deleted seven calls from Lt. Brown.
Thomas, who has been in at least 9 New York State prisons in the last decade, called Marcy's beat-up squad a gang.
"They the biggest gang. They an organized gang," Thomas said. "In some jails they tell you that: 'My gang is bigger than yours.' Some jails they actually tell you that."
Farina and 9 other guards pleaded guilty to killing Brooks or attempting to cover it up. An eleventh was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 25-to-life. Two were acquitted. Farina pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 22 years.
Brown was never charged with a crime. Nor did he lose his job.
Attempts to reach Brown directly were not successful. Jeffrey P. Mans, Brown's lawyer in a civil rights lawsuit brought by another prisoner for excessive force, declined to comment.
Thomas's story is one of dozens of reports of unjustified or excessive beatings and abuse documented in the obtained State Police reports. The reports reveal that the 13 guards convicted or accused of crimes in connection with Brooks' murder had 114 documented misconduct charges filed against them before the killing, The Free Lance News reported last week.
Farina had the second-highest number of documented complaints against him: 24. Only the ranking leader of the squad, Sgt. Trombly, had more: 25.
The five years' worth of documented but ignored reports of abuse mean prison supervisors turned a blind eye to the gang and let a real-life Stanford Prison Experiment take its brutal course.
Farina and the Marcy beat-up squad operated with the tacit approval of high-ranking state officials in Albany and Letitia James, New York State's Attorney General. They all knew about Marcy's beat-up squad, but failed to take any action to dismantle it. Their inaction enabled it.
Those supervisors have yet to be held accountable.
Former New York State Correction Officer Anthony R. Farina handcuffed and being led to prison for 22 years after pleading guilty to manslaughter for killing Robert Brooks at the Marcy Correctional Facility on Dec. 9, 2024. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
Among the dozens of documented complaints of prisoner abuse by Farina and Marcy's beat-up squad, Thomas appears to be the only one who fought back, according to State Police reports.
Thomas spent 20 months at Marcy, from February 2019 until September 2020—when he was transferred out after his fight with Farina.
"It's havoc," Thomas recalled Marcy at the time. "They mess with everyone that comes through. They just harass you. Especially if you talk to a lot of people."
Thomas wasn't referring to other prisoners at Marcy. He was referring to the beat-up squad.
Farina was "part of the gang intelligence unit," Thomas revealed. That's why he zeroed in on Thomas. "They think I'm gangbanging. They just tag me."
Farina was part of Marcy's Crisis Intervention Unit, the State Police reports confirm. Gang intelligence is a CIU function.
Independently corroborating what other Marcy prisoners told The Free Lance News more than a year ago, Thomas said Farina and the squad turned the walkways between buildings at Marcy into a hunting ground, where they played a sick game of predator vs prey with prisoners. Walking to the recreation yard, to the mess hall and even to school meant running their gauntlet.
Farina and the squad picked prisoners out of the crowd and made them submit to humiliating pat frisks. It was a sadistic power game meant to instill fear masquerading as a legitimate security measure.
"They put you on a wall," Thomas explained. "They make you take your shoes off—even in the middle of winter."
Two former Marcy prisoners told The Free Lance News last year about what they saw on Marcy's walkways.
"They'll do a lot to the point where sometimes you don't even want to come outside, you don't want to go to chow," one said.
Another said the squad was notorious for ripping dread-locks or box braids out of prisoners' heads.
"Sometimes you can walk down the walkway and see braids on the ground in front of the mess hall or in front of your dorm," Sean Chung recalled. "That was a normal day."
Because of the chronic harassment, Thomas quit going to school.
"I knew if I went to school I would have problems," he explained. "I signed myself out of the school for that reason."
Even though Thomas tried to avoid them, they brought him to the sergeant's office adjacent to the prison's gym one day—the same office other prisoners said they were abused in.
Thomas said they "dragged me out to the gym. Threatened me. They strip searched me. Threatened my dignity. They gave me a wedgie."
"Tuttle gave me a wedgie," Thomas specified, referring to former Correction Officer Skylar Tuttle.
Tuttle and Farina allegedly tortured William Alvarez at Marcy in 2020, The Free Lance News reported in 2024. They punched and choked him "to see if they can stop my breathing."
They repeatedly said they were going to murder him, Alvarez alleged.
"Being told that they were going to kill me," Alvarez testified under oath in support of a federal civil rights lawsuit he filed against them. "And there was nothing anybody can do about it."
The suit remains pending.
Back at Marcy in 2020, Thomas says being abused in the sergeant's office forced him to confront a stark truth.
"I cried that day," Thomas said. "It's either fight or don't fight and get your manhood destroyed."
"I wanted to go home," he added, "but I wanted to keep my manhood."
Thomas was doing six years for criminal possession of a weapon. He was scheduled to be released in 2022.
Timé Thomas Jr. in an undated booking photo from 2022. Photo credit: Niagara County Sheriff’s Office.
Farina came for him Aug. 30, 2020.
Thomas remembers the date because he was sitting in the day-room watching the MTV Video Music Awards. Due to the Wuhan virus pandemic, the 37th annual ceremony was held virtually. Keke Palmer hosted it. Lady Gaga swept the ceremony, collecting five Moonman statuettes.
Farina ordered Thomas to walk with him to the entranceway of the dormitory-style housing unit. There, a set of double-doors creates an enclosed foyer called a sallyport. The rectangular space is framed by concrete-block walls.
"I already knew when he called me between the doors," Thomas says. "They close that door and it's on. That's where they beat you."
Farina followed him into the sallyport and closed the door behind them—but didn't lock it.
"We were in between the doors," Thomas said, when Farina asked him "if I was man enough to look him in the eyes now."
In 2025, Thomas spoke with Troopers investigating Farina for Brooks' killing. He told them the beef with Farina started "from a prior incident where Farina told him if he had to deal with him again, he would slap the shit out of him."
In the sallyport in 2020, Thomas looked Farina in the eyes and Farina asked Thomas if they had an "understanding?"
Thomas replied: "mhmm."
That wasn't good enough for Farina. He told Thomas to answer "yes."
Thomas answered "mhmm" a second time.
Farina grabbed Thomas by the throat and began choking him, Thomas said. While choking him, Farina asked Thomas again if they had an "understanding."
Thomas answered "mhmm" a third time.
Farina tried to put him in a headlock, but Thomas pushed him off and attacked.
"I threw the first punch," Thomas said. "After I pushed him off me, I rushed him into the wall and threw the first punch."
The two went at it, exchanging blows. They slugged it out, one-on-one, for several moments. The fight spilled out of the sallyport, back into the front of the dorm by a guard post.
The guard at the post jumped in to help Farina, and another prisoner, Jachai Turner, jumped in to help Thomas.
Now the four of them went at it, two-on-two.
Emannuel Torres, also a prisoner of Marcy at the time, told Troopers investigating Farina in 2025 he saw "Thomas was brought out in the hallway by an unknown officer and then saw fists flying."
Moments later, Thomas surrendered after being hit with pepper-spray and going to the bathroom to try to wash it off. Farina handcuffed him, walked him back to the sallyport where the guard who peppersprayed him at first peppersprayed him a second time and kicked him in the groin.
They placed him in a van to take him to a cell in the prison's disciplinary segregation unit. In the van, guards continued to beat and punch him. Thomas told Troopers he even played possum "so the beating would stop but he continued to get punched and kicked."
Thomas was accused of assaulting guards. He was found guilty and sentenced to 10 months in solitary confinement plus loss of good-time credits. After he was found guilty, Farina visited him in solitary confinement.
"He gave me my props," Thomas said. "He respected me. I did what a lot of people wouldn't do."
Thomas said guards hadn't fed him for a week, giving him all-but empty trays if they gave him a tray at all. Thomas said he asked Farina to fix it. He said Farina did.
"He told them to feed me," Thomas said. "And give me a shower."
Farina did not respond to an emailed invitation to comment.
The gun State Police caught Timé Thomas Jr with after he survived Farina and the beat-up squad at the Marcy Correctional Facility on Aug. 30, 2020. Photo credit: unknown, via the New York State Police.
After the fight, other prisoners who had been in the dormitory and witnessed it reported it to prison officials in Albany, Thomas said.
"I was cool with a lot of dudes," Thomas explained. "When it happened to me, a lot of dudes didn't just turn their back. They called OSI for me."
"I had my family call Albany too," Thomas said. "I believe we gave them Farina's name."
The name of the state agency that manages New York's prison system is the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, or DOCCS. DOCCS' headquarters is in Albany.
DOCCS has an internal affairs bureau called the Office of Special Investigations, or OSI. OSI is tasked with investigating reports of misconduct and crimes by prison workers, among other things.
"OSI came to see me after the fact," Thomas said, while he was in solitary confinement. "I told them what was going on in the jail period. With the officers in that jail period. That's why I was calling."
But nothing ever became of it. OSI marked Thomas's documented complaint as "unsubstantiated," according to the State Police reports. Meaning it was dismissed as either unreliable or not provable.
"They never came back," Thomas said. "Never heard nothing. Nope."
Thomas said when he found out Farina got sent to prison for killing Brooks, Thomas thought "He's finally get caught up for his evilness."
Thomas was paroled May 9, 2022, two years after his fight with Farina.
He was arrested on new charges two months later, July 27. Cops caught him sleeping behind the wheel of a car at 2:30 AM in a Buffalo suburb with a semi-automatic Century Arms 9mm pistol under his leg—along with drugs, a girl and an 8-year-old in the back seat.
Thomas spent 19 months in the Niagara County jail before being released on bail with an electronic monitoring bracelet on his ankle in February 2024. Two months after that, Thomas allegedly shot and killed 31-year-old Quentin Sims on April 26.
Now 32, he was convicted of second degree murder Feb. 23, 2026.
Instead of creating the conditions that might have helped Thomas reform himself, Marcy and Farina helped make Thomas a killer.
"There's no rehabilitation at all when there's supposed to be," Thomas said. "Marcy has a dark cloud over it. A lot of people came home from there are back in jail. A lot of people overdosed or got killed."
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