Friday, July 25, 2008

Officer Pours Hot Water on Inmate

A federal grand jury in Jacksonville has indicted a state corrections sergeant on a civil rights violation stemming from an August 2005 assault on a suicidal inmate in Raiford, state and federal records show.

Paul Gregory Tillis, 43, was charged with violating the civil rights of the inmate at Florida State Prison by pouring hot water on him as he laid on a floor with a sheet tied around his neck, records show. The inmate, identified in records only by his initials, suffered second-degree burns to his upper torso and shoulder.

The indictment was handed up Wednesday. Authorities did not say if Tillis had been jailed.

The case was initially investigated by the Florida Department of Corrections Inspector General’s Office and turned over to the Jacksonville office of the FBI as a civil rights violation.

State records show that Tillis became a corrections officer in July 2001 at Florida State Prison in Bradford County. He was promoted to sergeant in July 2005 and resigned from his $38,000 a year job in April 2008, records show.

Tillis, who appealed his dismissal, worked out a settlement agreement with the state in which his dismissal letter was rescinded and he resigned. That also released the state from any liability in its action against him, records show.

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