A Philadelphia jail guard who pepper sprayed a beaten inmate was sentenced to five years in federal prison

A corrections officer who pepper sprayed an injured inmate and denied him access to medical treatment inside Philadelphia’s Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility was sentenced Thursday to five years in federal prison.

U.S. District Judge Juan R. Sánchez said the officer, Ivory Cousins, “failed miserably” in her duty to protect the inmate — and that to this day, he remained confused about why Cousins had committed those offenses.

“I’m still dumbfounded,” Sánchez said when delivering the sentence. “There’s no explanation as to why this happened … You were a sworn correctional officer who was properly trained.”

A jury found Cousins, 36, of West Deptford, New Jersey, guilty in April on three counts of depriving an inmate’s rights and one count of falsifying a report in an attempt to cover up her conduct during the 2019 incident.

Cousins was charged last summer. Prosecutors accused her of refusing to offer medical treatment to inmate Demetrius Jones as he lay bleeding in his cell after being beaten and robbed by a group of other prisoners.

Prosecutors said it was Cousins who unlocked Jones’ cell door and allowed the men inside.

The beating left Jones, who was jailed on drug charges, with a broken nose and bloodied, swollen face, weathering his injuries for an hour after the attack.

Cousins witnessed the attackers flee Jones’ cell but took no action to help him, according to prosecutors. Instead, Cousins locked Jones inside his cell and behaved “deliberately indifferent” to his injuries — that is, until Cousins pepper-sprayed Jones in the face shortly before he was taken in for medical treatment.

The case highlights the overlapping crises within Philadelphia’s jail system that emerged during and after the pandemic, including critical staffing shortages that have left prisoners, units, and guards vulnerable to violent assaults that sometimes end in death.

Cousins appeared in Sánchez’s courtroom in plain clothes next to her defense attorney Martin I. Isenberg and at one point chatted with her sister and cousin, who attended the hearing in her support.

Her calm demeanor began to slip when given the opportunity to speak before Sánchez.

“I do want the court to recognize that even with my trials and tribulations, I put God first,” Cousins said, her voice shaking.

“At the time of the incident, what was going on in my head?” she asked, seeming unable to fully answer that question.

While Cousins alluded to complaints of sexual harassment from a superior at work around the time of the assault — even suggesting she had been afraid for her safety and that she had complained to her employer — Sánchez and prosecutors agreed that the alleged abuse did not have any relation to Jones’ beating.

“No one deserves to be beat up,” Cousins said. “I’m not a nasty person — far from it.”

Isenberg, asking for a lenient sentence that fell below the recommendation mandated by law, implored Sánchez to consider Cousins’ “commendable” reputation as a single mother with no criminal prior record who overcame the trauma of losing both parents at a young age and grew up in foster care.

“She persevered, managed to provide for her children, provide a better life for herself — up to this point,” Isenberg said. “ … the issue before this court is humanity.”

Sánchez agreed that Cousins had overcome trauma, and said he took her past into consideration in the sentencing, which ultimately fell below the seven to nine year punishment prosecutors sought, though exceeded the three years Isenberg suggested.

Similar to his frustration with Cousins, Sánchez was dissatisfied that Isenberg, too, did not offer a reason for his client’s actions. And earlier in the hearing, the judge and Isenberg locked horns when debating whether the pepper spray Cousins used on Jones was considered a deadly weapon. In Sánchez’s assessment, it was.

Everett R. Witherell, an assistant U.S. attorney on the case, said that prosecuting Cousins, a former member of law enforcement, was no easy task, especially given her lack of previous criminal history.

There were, however, signs that Cousins had flouted her duties in her handling of Jones, according to Witherell.

“This wasn’t a heat of the moment decision — she wasn’t breaking up a fight,” Witherell said. “An hour went by.”

The prosecutor later read a victim impact statement penned by Jones, who was not present during the proceeding, in which the former inmate detailed nightmares, breathing problems, and a fear of other people that stem from the beating.

Witherell, too, struggled to name a motive.

“I know you’re looking for answers, judge,” Witherell said. “What you’re left with is an unexplainable, horrific event by a person who is duty bound, sworn to protect an individual who just needed help.”

Cousins’ sentence will be followed by two years of probation, according to the sentencing guidelines.