A correction officer covered up an assault on an inmate, helping to plant a noose in his cell to make it look as if he were suicidal, because she feared for her job and safety, the feds say.
Kelly Tassio, 38, a former lieutenant at the Metropolitan Detention Center, said she faked a 2002 report after an inmate was beaten by guards so badly that feces, blood and hair were splattered in his cell, according to documents at Brooklyn federal court.
Tassio and other guards wrote that they used force on inmate Robert George to keep him from hanging himself, the feds said.
Tassio is under indictment with 10 other guards, including Capt. Salvatore LoPresti, for assaulting George and another inmate and lying about it.
Tassio allegedly admitted in June 2006 that George hadn’t threatened to kill himself and she’d helped plant the noose because LoPresti said to and she “felt pressure of losing her job or jeopardizing her safety if she did not do what she was told.”
She recanted five days later, prosecutors said.
Her lawyer, Ronald Rubenstein, said the admission and recanting were government creations.
“Did she sign anything? No. Do they have a recording? No,” he said.
LoPresti’s lawyer declared his innocence.