The Justice Department announced that three former White
River Juvenile Detention Center officers: Will Ray, 26, Thomas Farris, 47, and
Jason Benton, 42, have been indicted by a federal grand jury for their roles in
a conspiracy to assault juvenile inmates.
The seven-count indictment charges that Ray, Farris, and
Benton conspired to assault juvenile detainees, assaulted the detainees, and
then tried to cover up their misconduct.
The indictment charges that, in some instances, the defendants used
pepper spray on juveniles and then, rather than decontaminating them, shut them
in their cells to “let them cook.”
In addition to the conspiracy, Ray is charged in Count Two
with participating in the Nov. 6, 2013, assault of a fourteen-year-old boy who
had been lying asleep on his bunk.
According to the indictment, Ray grabbed the boy from his bunk and held
him so that another officer could spray the boy in the face with pepper spray.
Farris, in addition to the conspiracy, is charged in Count
Three with assaulting a seventeen-year-old juvenile on Nov. 21, 2013, by pepper
spraying him in the face.
Counts Four through Seven of the Indictment charged Benton
with two assaults and with falsifying incident reports related to those
assaults. According to the Indictment,
on June 6, 2012, Benton assaulted a sixteen-year-old juvenile by grabbing,
shoving, and choking him. The indictment
also charges that, on May 19, 2013, Benton deployed pepper spray in the face of
a fifteen-year-old juvenile. According
to the indictment, none of the juveniles posed a physical threat to anyone nor
physically resisted in any way at the time they were assaulted by the officers.
The charges contained in this indictment are simply
accusations, and not evidence of guilt.
This case is being investigated by the FBI’s Little Rock
Division and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Peters of the
Eastern District of Arkansas and Trial Attorney Samantha Trepel of the Civil
Rights Division.
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