NEW MEXICO
Officials announced that former prisoner transport officer Anthony Buntyn, 55, was convicted of a felony civil rights offense for abusing detainees in his care.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Buntyn was a prisoner transport officer employed by Prisoner Transportation Services of America (PTS), a company hired by local jails and prisons throughout the country to transport people who had been arrested pursuant to out-of-state warrants and needed to be transported back to the states that had issued the warrants.
Buntyn was the supervising officer on a March 2017 PTS transport that stopped in New Mexico during a cross-country trip.
Buntyn was convicted of depriving detainees on the transport of their constitutional right to be free from an officer’s deliberate indifference to serious health and safety risks to the detainees.
Evidence at trial established that the defendant subjected inmates to dangerous, painful, and unhealthy conditions inside the van, officials stated.
He did this by doing the following acts:
- Handcuffed detainees behind their backs and forced them to remain for hours in a small segregation cage inside the van
- Deprived detainees of meals and access to water while they remained in the cage
- Cranked up the heat in the already-hot van in retaliation for detainees complaining that, as they passed through the southwestern desert, they were in danger of overheating
- Failed to provide the detainees with required restroom breaks, until the detainees were left with no choice but to urinate in empty bottles or on the floor.
Buntyn was acquitted of a use of force and an obstruction of justice charge.
“Prisoner transport officers, even those employed by private companies, must abide by our civil rights laws and protect the constitutional rights of people in their custody,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
“Detainees are entitled to basic human dignity,” said U.S. Attorney Alexander M.M. Uballez for the District of New Mexico.
A date for the sentencing hearing has not yet been announced.
This case was investigated by the FBI Kansas City Field Office.
It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly A. Brawley for the District of New Mexico and Trial Attorney Laura Gilson of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, with assistance from Special Litigation Counsel Samantha Trepel.