Lucasville inmate pleads guilty in stabbing attack on prison guard

0

PORTSMOUTH, Ohio (AP) — A man already convicted in three slayings and serving a life sentence has pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated murder and other charges in an attack on an Ohio prison guard.

Casey Pigge was sentenced to 32 more years in prison after pleading guilty Wednesday in the Feb. 20, 2018, attack on Matthew Mathias.

Pigge and co-defendant Greg Reinke had planned their attack on the correction officer at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, prosecutors said. They said Mathias was stabbed with shanks that Pigge made of pieces of metal from the inmates’ beds, the Chillicothe Gazette reported .

Mathias was stabbed 32 times as he was escorting the two inmates to the prison infirmary, according to prosecutors. He has numerous internal injuries and still hasn’t returned to work.

Scioto County Prosecutor Shane Tieman told the judge Wednesday that Mathias still has to go through more surgeries as he continues his recovery.

“The brutality of this ranks up there with the worst I’ve seen,” Tieman said. “I’m hopeful that this case will bring to light some of the things that our law enforcement personnel have to deal with in the prison system, and some good can come of this.”

Pigge appeared to show no remorse in court Wednesday, the newspaper reported. He told the judge more was being made of the crime because it involved a guard and not inmates.

“So it is what it is,” he said. “There’s always two sides to a coin.”

Reinke and Pigge are both on a hunger strike at the Lucasville prison, alleging mistreatment, according to Sara French, a spokeswoman with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. She has denied they are being mistreated.

As of breakfast Thursday, Reinke had missed 18 meals, and Pigge had missed 9 meals as of Wednesday night, French said.

Pigge, 31, previously has been convicted of three separate killings, including strangling a fellow inmate on a medical transport bus.

Reinke pleaded guilty last month to the same charges in the attack on Mathias and was also sentenced to an additional 32 months behind bars, Assistant Scioto County Prosecutor Joe Hale said Thursday. Reinke also was sentenced last month to 54 more years for using a shank to repeatedly stab handcuffed prisoners after slipping his own handcuffs in 2017.

Reinke, 38, was already serving a life sentence for aggravated murder for a fatal 2004 shooting in Cleveland.

___

Information from: Chillicothe Gazette, http://www.chillicothegazette.com

By Associated Press

No posts to display