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HOLLIDAYSBURG -- Two Blair County Prison inmates are facing lengthy prison sentences after being convicted Wednesday of aggravated assault, conspiracy and related offenses in the brutal attack of a fellow inmate.
"Richard Ewing may be the king of E-block but his reign ends here," First Assistant District Attorney Nichole Smith told the jurors when asking for guilty verdicts.
The 44-year-old Ewing was identified as the inmate who ordered an attack inside a jail cell that was carried out by other inmates including John Allen Jukes Jr., 43, Altoona, who was tried and convicted of the same offenses as Ewing.
The victim, who had every bone in his face broken, told the jury that he had to have surgery to address his broken jaw and needs more surgery to address injuries to his eye.
The victim, who was jailed on drug possession charges, said he was in the prison for about eight days before being transferred into E-block where the assault occurred the following day.
The jury, about 40 minutes after leaving the courtroom for deliberations, returned with verdicts convicting both Ewing and Jukes of felony offenses of aggravated assault to cause serious bodily injury, assault by prisoner and criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, assault by prisoner and simple assault. Each was also convicted of simple assault to cause bodily injury.
President Judge Elizabeth A. Doyle scheduled sentencing for Aug. 16, after completion of presentence investigations.
District Attorney Pete Weeks and Smith said Wednesday they will ask for sentences with significant jail time.
"I've never had a doctor on the witness stand say that every bone in a face was broken," Smith said after the trial concluded. "This was a gruesome attack.
Weeks said he will ask that Ewing's sentence follow his current sentence of 15 to 30 years handed down in Blair County Court in November on drug-trafficking and firearm offenses.
Ewing was also sentenced in April 2022 in Huntingdon County Court to 11 to 22 years for homicide by vehicle while DUI and related offenses. He was found to be under the influence of methamphetamine when he crashed his truck in Franklin Township and killed 59-year-old Wendy Reitz of Warriors Mark.
The victim of the prison assault, a 40-year-old Altoona man, testified Monday that he attempted to intervene when his cellmate and Jukes got into a confrontation over the cellmate's acquisition of an inmate commissary store. The victim said Jukes told him to mind his own business.
Trial testimony, supplemented by prison video, showed Jukes and other inmates gathering outside the victim's cell, where Ewing appeared to summon corrections officer Eric Dostal to unlock the cell door so Jukes and other inmates could get inside.
The victim said that when he attempted to leave, Jukes struck him in the jaw, nose and cheeks and caused him to fall to the floor.
The cellmate testified that inmates Delano Brown, Kyler Luckadoo and Korey Sitton followed Jukes into the cell and struck the victim.
Hollidaysburg police, who filed the charges against Ewing and Jukes, also filed pending charges against Brown, Luckadoo, Sitton and Dostal, who no longer works at the prison.
Weeks, who serves on the county prison board, called this case a striking example of a prison block being run by inmates instead of the corrections officers.
Defense attorney Robert Donaldson, who represented Jukes, said he believes there are appeal options to be considered.
"I don't think it benefitted my client to have a joint trial," he said.
Donaldson tried in his closing to get the jury to question trial testimony by presenting a drawing showing the jail cell as too small for the seven inmates reported to be inside during the attack.
Defense attorney Scott Pletcher tried to convince the jury in his closing that Ewing wasn't involved. Pletcher pointed to the prison video showing that after Dostal opened the door to the cell, Ewing walked away and down the hall.
"He's not even watching when the assault took place," Pletcher said.
Smith told the jury to reject that argument and directed attention to the video recorded after the assault, when Ewing returned to the area outside the cell. She pointed to Ewing, Jukes and other inmates who appeared to be celebrating by bumping-fists and patting each other on the back.
"Look at Mr. Ewing, how happy he is," Smith said. "Every piece of evidence you have indicates that he called the shots."