WASHINGTON—Former Tuscaloosa County
Sheriff’s Sergeant Althea Mallisham, 52, has been sentenced to 61 months in
prison for civil rights convictions for wrongfully using a Taser against three
detainees during separate incidents over a four month period in 2008.
On November 16, 2011, Mallisham pleaded
guilty to three felony civil rights offenses at which time she admitted that on
separate occasions while she was on duty as a Tuscaloosa sheriff’s sergeant and
acting under color of state law, she used an X26 Taser to electro-shock three
pre-trial detainees as a means of punishment. In each instance, the pre-trial
detainees were either restrained in handcuffs or securely locked in a jail
cell. None of the three detainees posed a physical threat to any officers or
other detainees when they were electro-shocked. In each instance, Mallisham
willfully exceeded and abused her authority under state law.
“Law enforcement officers who abuse
their power to maliciously subject those in their custody to extreme pain will
be held accountable,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the
Civil Rights Division. “The Justice Department will continue to vigorously
prosecute those who cross the line to engage in acts of criminal misconduct.”
“Officer Mallisham took an oath to
uphold the law. Virtually all of our law enforcement officers respect their
oaths and the power they are entrusted with to enforce the law, and they
perform their duties with honor and integrity,” said Joyce White Vance, U.S.
Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. “Mallisham, however, violated
her oath and broke the law. Today, she has been held accountable and sentenced
to five years in prison.”
This case was investigated by the
Tuscaloosa Resident Agency of the FBI’s Birmingham Field Office. The case was
prosecuted by Trial Attorney D.W. Tunnage of the Justice Department’s Civil
Rights Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Tamarra Matthews-Johnson for the
Northern District of Alabama.
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