CITIZEN STAFF REPORT
PIKEVILLE — A former Bureau of Prisons supervisor was sentenced Tuesday to five and one-half years in prison followed by one year of supervised release for leading two cover-ups of assaults of inmates held at U.S. Penitentiary Big Sandy in Debord.
Kevin X. Pearce, 39, of Inez, was convicted in March after a six-day trial in U.S. District Court in Pikeville. His co-defendants, former corrections officers Samuel Patrick of West Van Lear and Clinton Pauley of Ironton, Ohio, previously pleaded guilty to deprivation of rights under color of law and were respectively sentenced to 36 and 40 months in prison.
According to court evidence, Pearce, who at that time held the rank of operations lieutenant, covered up assaults committed March 30, 2021, and April 29, 2021, by Patrick and Pauley.
On March 30, 2021, Patrick and Pauley assaulted an inmate by spraying him in the face with pepper spray and kicking him in the head and upper body. Witnesses, including those who assaulted the inmates, testified that the inmate was compliant and not a threat and was assaulted for walking too slowly to his cell.
Pearce tried to cover up what happened by writing a false report describing the inmate as violent. He omitted that the inmate had been kicked in the head while he was prone and unresisting. According to the Department of Justice, Pearce pressured lower-ranking corrections officers to join the cover-up.
On April 29, 2021, Patrick and Pauley assaulted a second inmate by elbowing him in the head and punching him in the body. The victim of that assault had requested protection from other inmates. When the victim, who is white, revealed that he used to affiliate with Black gangs, Patrick referred to him as a “race traitor,” after which Patrick and Pauley both repeatedly struck him in the head and body.
Pearce again tried to cover up what happened by writing a false report stating the inmate agreed to go to his housing unit “without incident.” As the cover-up expanded, Pearce supervised efforts to discredit the inmate by recruiting another officer who was not present to write a report that falsely corroborated the cover story.
Pearce continued to stick with the cover-ups over a year later by making false statements to OIG and FBI agents who were investigating the assaults.
“As a supervisor, this defendant was responsible for safeguarding the rights of thousands of inmates, but he abused his authority by leading cover-ups of two violent assaults of inmates in his custody,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
U.S. Attorney Carlton S. Shier IV for the Eastern District of Kentucky said Pearce “now faces the consequences of this betrayal of the public trust placed in him.”