Edition: U.S. / Global

Appeals Court Reduces Guard's Sentence

Published: August 30, 2002

A federal appeals court this week reduced the sentence of a former Nassau County jail guard who had pleaded guilty to fatally beating an inmate in 1999.

In cutting the sentence from 27 years to just over 11 years, the court reinstated the guard's original sentence, which he had unsuccessfully appealed.

The federal court acknowledged that it may have misled the defendant, Patrick Regnier, and a lower court judge about the risk of a longer sentence that Mr. Regnier faced in pursuing his appeal.

Mr. Regnier was one of two jail guards who admitted to beating Thomas Pizzuto, 38, a heroin addict who was serving a 90-day sentence for traffic violations. Mr. Pizzuto died of a ruptured spleen five days after the Jan. 8, 1999, beating.

Mr. Regnier was initially sentenced in May 2000 to 11 years and 3 months in prison. But he and the other former guard convicted in the beating, Edward Velazquez, appealed. The appeals court affirmed the convictions of both men but directed the trial judge to clarify whether they had been found guilty of voluntary or involuntary manslaughter or second-degree murder.

Mr. Velazquez then withdrew his appeal because of the risk of a longer prison sentence.

Mr. Regnier pursued his appeal and was sentenced again, to 27 years in prison, more than double his original sentence. But on Monday the appeals court scaled back that sentence to the original 11 years and 3 months.