former detention officer sentenced for assault on another inmate
GREENVILLE, N.C. - United States Attorney Thomas G. Walker along with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice announced that in federal court today Senior United States District Judge Malcolm J. Howard sentenced former Sergeant Danny Ray Duncan, of the Columbus County Detention Center, and inmate Terry McMillian on charges relating to the assault of another inmate. McMillian received 46 months imprisonment followed by three years supervised release. Duncan, 63, received 20 months imprisonment followed by two years supervised release.
U.S. Attorney Walker stated, “No one is above the law. Those responsible for the beating of this inmate must face consequences for their criminal conduct.”
During plea proceedings on October 6, 2011, Duncan, while working on the night shift as a Sergeant with the Columbus County Dentention Center in Whiteville, N.C., admitted that on August 2, 2010, he placed a pretrial detainee into a cell knowing there was a substantial risk that the inmates in the cell would assault the detainee. Duncan further admitted that he acted with deliberate indifference to the risk of assault, and that the detainee suffered bodily injury as a result of the assault.
McMillian, 26, who pled guilty on December 5, 2011, to conspiring to commit an offense against the United States, was an inmate at the detention center at the time of the assault and, he along with another inmate, brutally beat the detainee.
Investigation of this case was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Toby Lathan from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of North Carolina and Trial Attorney Ryan R. McKinstry from the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice prosecuted the case.
