POUGHKEEPSIE – The state prison inmate who beat a female corrections officer in April was sentenced for his latest crime on Thursday.
Green Haven inmate Vernon Mingo, 39, was sentenced to an additional two to four years following his guilty plea to attempted assault, said District Attorney William Grady.
The DA issued a statement saying that the additional time would run consecutive with his current sentence, meaning that the additional years would be tacked on to the end of the original sentence.
Grady’s opponent, Richard Berube was in the courtroom for the sentencing. Berube is a former assistant district attorney who said that Grady allowed the convict to plead to a non-violent felony of attempted assault even though Mingo struck a female corrections officer in the face.
Berube, mounting his first political campaign, called the plea deal “an insult to the men and women serving as corrections officers.” Berube also said that in a second incident, a corrections officer was assaulted by an inmate who spat blood into the face of the female officer. The blood landed in the eye and mouth of the officer, leading to a battery of medical tests. “My opponent once again disrespected the corrections officers by failing to prosecute an inmate that could have potentially caused an officer to suffer an infectious disease such as HIV. Mr. Grady repeatedly fails to understand the risks associated with being a Corrections Officer.”
