Federal prison inmate gets 30 years for killing over stamps
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (AP) — A man from El Salvador will spend 30 years in prison for killing his cellmate at a federal prison in Pennsylvania over the theft of postage stamps.
Pennlive.com (http://bit.ly/1HAghOJ ) reports 37-year-old Javier Oswaldo Jovel-Aguilar was sentenced Wednesday night by a federal judge in Williamsport who heard video testimony from other inmates about brutal conditions at the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary.
That’s where federal prosecutors say the defendant kicked and stomped cellmate Arnold Smith, who was handcuffed at the time. Guards have inmates extend their hands through bars to be handcuffed before they’re removed from cells, and Smith was being taken to a recreation area and was attacked after being cuffed but before guards could enter the cell.
That happened on June 1, 2010. Smith died of his injuries 15 days later.