INMATE ABUSE Former deputy headed to prison

The former deputy has an unrelated sexual battery trial pending.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Former deputy Mark Dixon received nearly two years in federal prison for beating a Mahoning County jail inmate.
Dixon, 32, of Youngstown, was sentenced Tuesday in Cleveland federal court by U.S. District Judge Lesley Brooks Wells. The judge gave him 22 months in prison on each of the three civil rights counts and fined him $1,000. The time will run concurrent, and he will serve two years' supervised release after prison.
He remains free on unsecured bond pending placement by the Bureau of Prisons.
What happened
On Feb. 28, Dixon pleaded guilty to conspiracy to deprive inmate Tawhon Easterly of his civil right to be free from the use of excessive force amounting to punishment in retaliation for punching a female guard; aiding and abetting and causing the beating of Easterly in the fourth-floor gym at the jail; and aiding and abetting and causing the beating of Easterly in a secluded corridor at the jail.
The beatings took place Dec. 28, 2001. The second beating was ordered by then-Maj. Michael Budd, the government said. Budd was found guilty at trial and awaits sentencing.
Dixon's Cleveland attorney, Henry F. DeBaggis, provided the court with a statement Dixon made to a probation officer about his conduct. It says, in part: "I'm sorry I did this and I should have refused to obey this unlawful order. ... This was a real difficult work situation for me because of a lot of unreasonableness that I had with Major Budd as my boss. Major Budd was very vindictive and if you defied his orders or authority, he would make your life miserable. Nevertheless, I should have refused this order and I'm sorry I didn't but I accept responsibility for what I did."
Others involved
The case was investigated by the FBI and Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation. The case was prosecuted by Steven M. Dettelbach, an assistant U.S. attorney, and Kristy Parker, a U.S. Department of Justice civil rights division trial attorney based in Washington, D.C.
Dixon was the last holdout in a case that began with six defendants indicted in July 2004. Dixon's co-defendants are former deputies Raymond Hull III, John Rivera and Ryan Strange and retired jail supervisors Bill Deluca and Ronald Denson, who pleaded guilty in November 2004. Another former deputy, Ronald J. Kaschak, pleaded guilty in April 2004.
Deluca, Denson and Kaschak await sentencing.
Earlier this month, Rivera, 32, of Youngstown, was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Hull, 36, of Poland, received a 15-month sentence. Strange, 30, of Vienna, will serve 21 months in prison.
Preceding charges
Dixon was removed from the sheriff's department payroll in March 2003 after he was indicted on an unrelated charge of sexual battery. He is accused of having sex with Natalie Ice, an inmate at the jail. That case goes to trial in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on July 20.
Ice also has a federal civil rights lawsuit pending against Dixon that goes to trial Sept. 12 in Cleveland.
meade@vindy.com