A former Georgia sheriff’s deputy has been sentenced to 16 months in federal prison for repeatedly punching a Black detainee whose beating by guards was recorded by a jail security camera nearly three years ago.
A U.S. District Court judge sentenced 27-year-old Ryan Biegel on Thursday. The former Camden County deputy had pleaded guilty earlier this year to violating the due process rights of Jarrett Hobbs by using unreasonable force. Hobbs of Greensboro, North Carolina, was booked into the Camden County jail near the Georgia-Florida line for traffic violations and drug possession charges on Sept. 3, 2022. Security video from that night showed Hobbs standing alone in his cell before five guards rushed in and surrounded him. At least three deputies were shown punching him in the head and neck before Hobbs was dragged from the cell and hurled against a wall.
Hobbs’ attorneys, Harry Daniels and Bakari Sellers, said in a statement Friday that jailers “beat him mercilessly” with false confidence they would never be prosecuted. “Let this sentence serve as some solace to everyone who has been terrorized by violence masquerading as law and order and a warning to their brutalizers,” the lawyers’ statement said. “Your badge will not protect you any more than it protected Ryan Biegel.” Biegel’s defense attorney, Adrienne Browning, said she had no immediate comment.
Biegel and two other deputies, all of them white, were fired and arrested in connection with the assault on Hobbs, but not until more than two months later when one of Hobbs’ attorneys obtained the video and made it public. All three still face state charges of battery and violating their oaths of office, according to Camden County Superior Court records. U.S. District Court records show federal charges being brought only against Biegel.
It was Hobbs who was initially charged after being attacked in his cell. Prosecutors later dismissed charges of aggravated battery, simple assault and obstruction of law enforcement officers against Hobbs, citing a lack of evidence. Also dropped were the traffic violation and drug charges that had landed Hobbs in jail. Camden County officials paid Hobbs a cash settlement to avoid a civil lawsuit, but the amount was not disclosed.
