A former Hamilton County Jail corrections officer who shoved a 61-year-old inmate headfirst into a cell's concrete wall, splitting the man's head open and breaking his hip has been sentenced to 3½ years in prison.
Jason Mize, 35, pleaded guilty earlier this year to a federal charge of violating the man's right to be free from excessive force.
Prosecutors said that during the investigation into Mize’s conduct, he lied repeatedly and pressured witnesses not to come forward.
After the August 2016 incident, Mize left the man, Mark Myers, moaning and bleeding on the cell's floor. Mize eventually returned to the holding cell, prosecutors said – to cover the door's window with a curtain.
Myers, who was later acquitted of the misdemeanor theft charge he had been jailed on, ended up being hospitalized for two weeks.
Mize ultimately resigned. According to prosecutors, in a Facebook message sent in April 2017, months after his resignation, Mize said: "I miss choking people."
At a sentencing Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati, prosecutors said Mize had a history of violence as a corrections officer.
Mize was disciplined more than nine times, prosecutors said, and at least three of those times were for excessive force. After a 2013 incident, Mize was suspended without pay for three days for repeatedly striking an inmate with his knee, "landing multiple blows to the inmate’s face," according to court documents.
Mize began working for the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office 2007 and was laid off the next year. He was rehired in 2011 and served until his resignation in 2016.
According to prosecutors, Mize had a reputation for violence and "reveled" in it.
His nicknames on the job were "Mize the Destroyer" and "Rape Choke," prosecutors said in documents filed before the sentencing. Mize was known for saying he was going to "rape choke" people.
On July 30, 2016, less than a month before the incident involving Myers, Mize had the following exchange with a friend on Facebook:
Mize: "Lol we just beat the (expletive) outta this dude."
Friend: "Lol what did u guys do?"
Mize: "Choked kicked smacked punched the (expletive) outta dude."
Friend: "Lol what is he doing now?"
Mize: "Chilling in the chair hopefully bleeding to death."
In April 2017, there was the following exchange between Mize and a corrections officer:
Officer: "Good luck i choked a guy out the other day didnt do paperwork and im worried about officers snitching. just aint the department you and I started in anymore."
Mize: "Yea that’s the damn truth lol. I miss choking people."
Officer: "I miss you choking people."
Myers sued the county, and in 2018 the case settled for half a million dollars. Myers has since died due to circumstances unrelated to what happened at the jail.
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