HOLLIDAYSBURG — A former Blair County Prison corrections officer charged in the September 2022 beating of an inmate was sentenced Friday to 10 years’ probation.

Eric William Dostal Jr., 29, Summerhill, who unlocked the door of the jail cell where the beating occurred, pleaded guilty to a first-degree felony count of aggravated assault, the more serious of two charges Hollidaysburg police filed against Dostal in November.

Senior Judge Jolene G. Kopriva accepted the guilty plea and imposed the recommended sentence, which allows Dostal to seek early termination if five years pass without probation violations.

Defense attorney Richard Corcoran told Kopriva that Dostal, by entering the plea, was taking responsibility for his actions.

Court records indicate that Dostal has no prior criminal history.

Outside court, Dostal said he was ready to move on with his life.

Dostal, who resigned as a corrections officer, said he worked about four years at the prison. He described the day of the incident as a “normal” work shift.

During a May jury trial for inmates Richard Allen Ewing of Tyrone and John Allen Jukes of Altoona, evidence included a video showing E-block inmates and Dostal carrying plastic cups of prison “hooch” in the hallway and around tables outside the inmate cells.

The video also showed inmates gathering outside the cell, then Ewing speaking to Dostal, who unlocked the cell for the third time. Jukes subsequently pushed his way into the cell and was followed by inmates Delano Brown, Kyler Luckadoo and Korey Sitton.

Testimony indicated that Ewing, who was running an illegal commissary at that time, told Jukes to take an inmate’s collection of commissary items. When that inmate’s cellmate tried to intervene, testimony indicated that the cellmate was beaten so badly that he suffered a concussion, a broken nose and required jaw surgery.

The cellmate, who initially told prison personnel he fell out of bed, was subsequently taken to UPMC Altoona for treatment.

During Ewing and Jukes’ trial, the victim testified that the pain from the beating was worse than anything he ever imagined.

While the victim wasn’t in court Friday morning, information presented to Kopriva indicated that he was in support of the proposed plea and recommended probationary sentence.

When handing down the sentence, Kopriva told Dostal to have no contact with the victim. She also ordered Dostal to pay a portion of $1,200 in restitution to the victim, to be shared with Ewing and Jukes, who were convicted at trial and are now serving sentences of 20 to 40 and 18.5 to

37 years, respectively, in connection with the assault.

The restitution is also to be shared with Brown, Luckadoo and Sitton, based on pending resolutions to their criminal charges.

Dostal is the second prison corrections officer to be convicted of criminal charges in connection with an inmate assault in the county prison. In July 2019, former corrections officer Dalton Zeiders rendered no contest pleas to four misdemeanors and was sentenced to five years’ probation. In that case, he was accused of turning a blind eye to activities in March 2017 on E-block where inmates lured an inmate into a cell and assaulted him. The victim of the assault, in an attempt to conceal contraband, had placed plastic-wrapped tobacco in his rectum.

Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 814-946-7456.