Prosecutors are expected to announce criminal charges on Thursday against three city correction officers suspected of deliberately looking the other way as several inmates on Rikers Island beat another inmate to death in the jail in October, people briefed on the case said on Wednesday.
The battered body of the victim, Christopher Robinson, 18, was found in his cell on Oct. 18.
The medical examiner’s office ruled his death a homicide, officials said.
No motive for the fatal attack has been divulged. Within days of Mr. Robinson’s death, two correction officers, Michael McKie and Khalid Nelson, were placed on modified assignment as an investigation into the death at the Robert N. Davoren Center of the jail complex began, law enforcement officials said.
Those two officers, as well as a third, a woman whose name has not been released, and several inmates accused of being the assailants are believed to have been named in the indictment, which is expected to be unsealed in State Supreme Court in the Bronx on Thursday, said one of the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the charges have not been resolved.
The indictment is expected to allege that the correction officers “were purposefully not paying attention,” the official said. “My understanding is they have been arrested and are in custody.”
Sanford A. Rubenstein, a lawyer for the victim’s family, said officials from the office of the Bronx district attorney, Robert T. Johnson, notified the teenager’s mother, Charnel Robinson, 34, about the pending charges but did not provide her with the names of the defendants or the specific charges they are facing.
He added: “This indictment will send a message to those charged with the responsibility of safeguarding inmates from harm that if you do not do your duty, you will be charged criminally, and a message to inmates that if you commit a horrible crime while incarcerated you will be held accountable.”
Mr. Rubenstein said that Ms. Robinson told him that her son was arrested in August on a parole violation stemming from a 2007 burglary charge. He said she said the violation involved her son’s “working late.”
