Cadie McAlister, Concealing Felony, Tennessee 2019

MEMPHIS, TN – A former correctional officer has pleaded guilty to concealing a felony while serving at the Tennessee Department of Corrections.

Cadie McAlister, 21, pleaded guilty to a federal offense and admitted concealing other correctional officers' assault of an inmate while McAlister was serving as an officer with the Tennessee Department of Corrections.

According to the plea agreement, on February 1, 2019, McAlister and other correctional officers at the Northwest County Correctional Complex in Tiptonville, Tennessee, went to the cell of R.T., an inmate in the mental health unit. Other officers entered the cell while McAlister stood in the doorway.

McAlister heard someone ask for the surveillance camera to be covered and saw a correctional officer cover the camera with his hand. After the camera was covered, McAlister saw an officer repeatedly hit R.T. without any lawful justification.

While the officer was hitting R.T., another officer asked McAlister to get paper towels. She brought paper towels back to the cell and provided them to an officer who wet them. She then saw the officer covering the camera put the wet paper towels over the camera.

McAlister was responsible for regularly updating the logbook in the mental health unit during her shift. However, she failed to document the arrival of additional officers into the unit, the entry of five officers into R.T.'s cell, that an officer repeatedly hit R.T., that the camera was covered while the officers were in the cell, that she provided paper towels which were used to cover the camera, or that R.T. remained in his cell bleeding after the correctional officers left.

With today's guilty plea, McAlister admitted that she violated 18 U.S.C. § 4 by knowing of a federal felony, failing to notify authorities of the felony, and taking an affirmative step to conceal the felony. The maximum penalty for this offense is three years of imprisonment.

Previously, former correctional officers Nathaniel Griffin, Tanner Penwell, and Carl Spurlin Jr., entered guilty pleas for criminal offenses arising out of the assault of inmate R.T.

This case is being investigated by the Memphis Division of the FBI, with the support of the Tennessee Department of Corrections, and is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Rebekah J. Bailey of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and Assistant United States Attorney David Pritchard of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Tennessee.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdtn/pr/fourth-former-tennessee-correctional-officer-pleads-guilty-following-assault-inmate