Jackson Free Press

Three more men have been indicted for their alleged participation in a May 2012 riot at a federal prison in Adams County.

On May 29, U.S. Attorney Greg K. Davis announced that a federal grand jury indicted Hector Miguel Diaz-Osuna, Ricardo Gonzalez-Porras and Jesus Beltran-Rodriguez for conspiracy to commit murder. Gonzalez-Porras was also charged with assaulting a prison guard.

Two other men—Juan Geraldo Arredondo and Ernesto Granados—were charged with rioting as well, according to the indictment. The case is scheduled for an August 2014 trial before Senior U.S. District Judge David Bramlette III.

The incident occurred on May 20, 2012, when 100 to 300 inmates briefly seized control of part of the Adams County Correctional Center. During the uprising, prisoners held two dozen staff members hostage, several of which they reportedly targeted for beatings and one of which, Catlin Carithers—a correctional officer who had shown up for a shift on what was supposed to be his day off— they beat to death.

Prisoners said that at the time, they were protesting against abuse from guards; prison officials blamed a flare up between California-based gangs.

Since the riot, a number of prisoners have faced charges amid a bureaucratic shuffle at the prison that Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest private corrections firm, operates on behalf of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

The 2,500-bed facility houses immigrants charged with federal crimes, including the felony offense of illegally reentering the U.S. after having been deported. Entering the U.S., without legal documentation is a misdemeanor.

In 2013, Barbara Wagner replaced Lance McLaughlin as warden. McLaughlin was warden at the time of the May 20 riot. Wagner went to Adams County from another CCA-run facility in Southern California. Wagner worked for the federal prison system for three decades before joining the private prison industry.

Davis also announced that Humberto Cuellar, 41, of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and Gerson Benavides, 30, of Reynosa, Mexico, were sentenced for participating in the riot, and a federal judge ordered each man to pay $1.4 million in restitution.

In February, judges sentenced one of the rioters, Adrian Romero-Carrera, 27, of Oaxaca, Mexico, to 75 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. A judge also ordered Romero-Carrera to pay restitution in the amount of $1.3 million.