BALTIMORE — Daric Evans, age 32, of Crisfield, a correctional officer at the Eastern Correctional Institution in Westover, pleaded guilty March 19 to conspiring to obstruct justice, related to covering up evidence that a fellow officer at ECI had unlawfully assaulted an inmate.

The guilty plea was announced by Erek L. Barron, United States Attorney for the District of Maryland; Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division; and Acting Special Agent in Charge R. Joseph Rothrock of the FBI Baltimore Field Office.

According to his guilty plea, on July 12, 2021, while working at ECI, Evans learned that another officer had used force against an inmate. Upon learning of the incident, Evans responded to the scene, where he assisted other correctional officers with escorting the inmate to a medical evaluation. During the evaluation, the inmate cried and was visibly injured with blood on his face. The inmate, only identified as “K.K.” also asserted that he had been assaulted by a correctional officer, Samuel Warren.

Then, Evans and several other correctional officers escorted the inmate to a cell for a monitored strip search. During the strip search, the inmate was fully compliant and crying. Correctional Officer David Quillen filmed the inmate during the evaluation and strip search.

After the strip search, Evans and a number of other correctional officers watched Quillen’s video of the inmate.  After watching the video, a supervisory officer commented that the video looked bad and needed to be deleted. Quillen indicated that he would delete the video, and Evans understood that Quillen subsequently did so. In addition, the supervisory officer proposed a cover story for why the video had gone missing, and Evans and other officers agreed to lie about the deletion.

Following the deletion, Evans and other correctional officers discussed that—as previously agreed—they would lie to investigators about what had happened to the video of the inmate. Evans in fact lied about what happened to the video, including by withholding the information from state investigators and lying to federal investigators.

Evans faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for the conspiracy to obstruct justice. U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett has scheduled sentencing for June 27.

Samuel Warren, age 38, of Westover, has since pleaded guilty to federal offenses related to his unlawful assault of the inmate and is scheduled for sentencing on June 11, 2024. David Quillen, 37, of Ocean View, also pleaded guilty to federal offenses related to the deletion of the video and is scheduled to be sentenced on May 22.

U.S. Attorney Erek L. Barron and Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke commended the FBI for its work in the investigation and thanked the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services for its assistance. Mr. Barron also thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Marquardt and Trial Attorney Erin Monju of the Civil Rights Division’s Criminal Section who are prosecuting the case, with assistance from Special Legal Counsel Mark Blumberg of the Civil Rights Division’s Criminal Section.