A former Pike County, Ohio, Sheriff’s Office deputy was sentenced Wednesday to eight years and four months in prison and three years of supervised release for federal civil rights violations involving excessive force, officials stated.
In August 2023, a federal jury convicted 49-year-old Jeremy C. Mooney of violating a detainee’s constitutional rights.
Mooney, a former Pike County Sheriff’s deputy, was found guilty of pepper-spraying and punching the restrained victim, who posed no threat. The jury determined Mooney’s actions constituted excessive force and resulted in injury.
“This defendant is being sentenced for the violent assault of an inmate who was confined to a restraint chair and unable to protect himself or escape from the abuse,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
“As a law enforcement officer, Mooney had a duty to protect the civil rights of everyone in his community,” said Special Agent in Charge Elena Iatarola of the FBI Cincinnati Field Office. “By abusing a person in his custody, he violated his oath and federal law. The FBI will continue to hold accountable rogue officers who commit civil rights violations and use excessive force against those they are sworn to protect.”
According to court documents and trial testimony, on Nov. 18, 2019, Mooney transported the victim from the jail to the Pike County Sheriff’s Office headquarters, where he placed the victim in a restraint chair.
The restraint chair secured the victim’s hands behind his back and prevented him from being able to move most of his body.
For more than an hour, Mooney unlawfully used force against the victim on several occasions.
Mooney dragged the victim — who was in the restraint chair — outside, and pepper sprayed him directly in the face.
The victim writhed in pain and tipped the chair back off the curb, landing on his back. Mooney then stood over the victim and deployed the pepper spray directly into the victim’s face a second time. Mooney brought the victim back inside the building and walked away.
Over several minutes, Mooney returned to that part of the building, where the victim was still handcuffed and secured in the restraint chair, and punched the victim in the head 11 times.
Mooney punched the victim with enough force to break his hand.
A former Pike County Sheriff’s Office supervisor, William Stansberry Jr., 47, of Chillicothe, Ohio, was also charged.
Stansberry violated the victim’s constitutional rights by willfully failing to intervene to prevent Mooney’s conduct.
He pleaded guilty in July 2023 to deprivation of civil rights under color of law and was sentenced on March 5 to six months in prison.
The FBI Cincinnati Field Office investigated the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter K. Glenn-Applegate for the Southern District of Ohio and Trial Attorney Cameron A. Bell of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division prosecuted the case.