Inmates sentenced in prison riot case

Published 12:00 am Friday, July 1, 2016

NATCHEZ — Several inmates who participated in the May 20, 2012, prison riot at the Adams County Correctional Center — including those who have confessed to attacking a correctional officer who later died — received sentences for their parts in the uprising Thursday.

Correctional officer Sgt. Catlin Carithers died of blunt force trauma to the head he received as he and other guards tried to contain the riot by deploying crowd control gas.

U.S. District Judge David Bramlette III handed down the sentences against the inmates. Those sentenced included:

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-Ricardo Gonzales-Porras, 31, originally of Chihuahua, Mexico, who was sentenced to 300 months in prison.

-Ricardo Quintana, 29, originally of Chihuahua, Mexico, who was sentenced to 48 months in prison.

-Ernesto Granados, 37, originally of Salamanca, Mexico, who was sentenced to 120 months in prison.

-Ian Reid, 45, originally of Montego Bay, Jamaica, who was sentenced to 89 months in prison.

-Marco Perez-Serano, 32, originally of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, who was sentenced to 105 months in prison.

The four men were also ordered to pay restitution — jointly and individually — in the amount of $1,382,313. They face deportation following the serving of their sentences.

The riot lasted several hours, and a 2012 affidavit filed by FBI investigators alleged Granados was the leader of a prison group known as Paisas that ordered those associated with the group to stay outside their housing units on the day of the riot until demands they took to the prison leadership were addressed.

Gonzales-Porras pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in connection with the riot in January 2015.

Perez-Serano pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in August 2013, but prosecutors said he was the first inmate to attack Carithers, using a food tray in the assault.

During the riot, inmates stacked food carts in order to access the roof of the building on which Carithers was standing as part of his response to the attack.

Inmates assaulted Carithers with their hands, feet and improvised weapons, including a broom and a metal pole, Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Lemon said in previous hearings for other inmates.