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an ex connecticut The police officer accused of mistreating prisoner Richard “Randy” Cox after he was left paralyzed in the back of a police van pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor Wednesday and did not receive a prison sentence, while three other officers decided to take their cases to trial.
Betsy Segui, a former new Haven The sergeant who supervised the city police station lockup pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless endangerment in exchange for a 60-day suspended jail term. Another former officer, Ronald Pressley, entered the same plea and received an identical sentence last week.
Cox, 39, who did not attend the New Haven Superior Court hearing, was paralyzed from the chest down on June 19, 2022, when the police van he was riding in without a seat belt applied the brakes hard, causing his head to hit a metal partition while his hands were tied behind his back. He was arrested for threatening a woman with a gun, which was later dismissed.
According to police video, Cox said in the van minutes after the crash, “I can’t move. I’m going to die like this. Please, please, please help me.” Later it was found that his neck was broken.
Once at the police station, officers mocked Cox and accused him of being drunk and faking his injuries, according to surveillance and body-worn camera footage. Officers dragged Cox out of the van and around the police station and ultimately placed him in a holding cell before transferring him to a hospital.
According to the internal affairs investigation report, when Cox told officers he thought he broke his neck, Segui responded, “You’re not breaking anything. You just drank too much.”
Segui did not say anything about Cox’s treatment during the court hearing. He answered only standard questions from the judge about his guilty plea.
Her attorney, Gregory Ceritelli, said Segui wanted to put the criminal case behind her.
“She is no longer working in law enforcement nor does she have any desire to be, so I think from her perspective this gives her closure and gives her a chance to move on with her life and focus on her new career,” he said in an interview after the hearing. He declined to say what Segui’s new career path entails.
The three other officers involved in Cox’s transportation, Oscar Diaz, Jocelyn Lavandier and Luis Rivera, rejected plea deals offered by prosecutors and decided to take their cases to trial. All three have been charged with cruelty to persons and reckless endangerment.
Prosecutors said Cox had been informed of Segui’s plea in advance and had given his consent. In 2023, the city of New Haven agreed to settle a lawsuit by Cox for $45 million.
Cox’s attorney, Louis Rubano, said that Cox and his family were hopeful that the pleas by all five officers would bring the criminal cases to a quick end.
Rubano said, “I think closure to this tragic situation is what the family wants, and the fact that there is now potentially a trial looming for the other remaining officers forces Randy and his family to relive the events of that tragic day.”
Rubano said Cox has purchased a home and is living there with his mother, who is caring for him with the help of medical professionals.
Civil rights advocates, including the NAACP, expressed outrage over the comparison to the case. freddie gray in case baltimorecox is BlackWhile all five officers arrested are black or Hispanic. Gray, who was also Black, died in 2015 after suffering a spinal cord injury while being handcuffed and shackled in a Baltimore police van.
The case led to reforms in the New Haven Police Department as well as a statewide seat belt requirement for inmates.
New Haven police fired Seguí, Diaz, Lavandier and Rivera for violating police conduct policies, while Pressley retired. Diaz appealed his dismissal and got his job back. Diaz, who was driving the van when Cox was injured, said he had to brake hard to avoid a crash with another vehicle.