ROCHESTER, New York – The Marcy Correctional Facility, which is currently under fire for the fatal beating of an inmate serving time for a Monroe County assault, has also been the subject of several other lawsuits alleging correctional officer violence.
At least one of the staff members accused in deadly beating of Robert Brooks in early December was named in a lawsuit filed by another inmate who claims he was also brutally beaten but survived.
Adam Bauer filed a lawsuit in 2022, claiming that while incarcerated at the facility in 2020, he was “viciously assaulted” by several officers. According to the lawsuit, Bauer was serving time for a nonviolent drug crime and had less than a year until his release date.
In February 2020, Bauer claimed that officer Antonio Iodice entered the bathroom where he had gone to smoke a cigarette and demanded a search for contraband.
According to the lawsuit, Bauer “immediately complied” with Iodice, but despite his complicity, he was later attacked “without any justification or warning.”
Bauer was allegedly punched in the head, thrown to the ground, and repeatedly kicked while lying down before several other officers joined in on the beating.
The other officers named were Nicolas Anzalone, Sgt. Alfred Zeina, and Sgt. Thomas McNaney. According to court documents obtained by News 8, Anzalone was one of several officers involved in the 2024 beating of Robert Brooks, who later died.
According to Bauer’s lawsuit:
“One of the sergeants present hit Plaintiff over the head with a clipboard so hard that the metal clasp on the clipboard left a V-shaped gash in Plaintiff’s forehead.”
Bauer was then taken to the infirmary, where he was forced to “lie face down on the floor while CO Anzalone kicked his feet,” the lawsuit claimed.
According to the lawsuit, after the beating, the officers told an in-house nurse that Bauer’s injuries were self-inflicted, but when Bauer was hospitalized, the officers told him that he had been attacked by another inmate.
The lawsuit also claimed that when Bauer returned to the facility, an officer threatened him “if he told anyone about the assault,” and he was placed in solitary confinement.
Bauer was found guilty and penalized at a disciplinary hearing more than a week after the alleged assault, but the decision was overturned two months later.
News 8 contacted Bauer’s legal team, which confirmed that Anzalone was involved in the alleged beatings of both Bauer and Brooks.
According to Bauer’s lawyer, Marcy Correctional was aware of Anzalone’s prior actions but did nothing about them.
“ My client Adam Bauer was brutally assaulted in 2020 at Marcy CF, the same prison where Robert Brooks was just murdered, by one of the same corrections officers. Adam thought he would die that day, as officers punched and kicked him to a bloody heap. The officers then lied to cover up the beating. No officer was ever disciplined. Although DOCCS and New York State leaders now say they condemn the actions of the officers who killed Mr. Brooks, their statements are too little too late. The reality is that DOCCS leadership has tolerated officers’ violence against incarcerated people for too long, allowing officers to beat people in their custody and cover up these beatings without consequence. The New York State Attorney General’s Office is equally complicit because it defends these officers in court case after case, no matter how absurd the cover-up or how vicious the assault. All of this is at New York State taxpayers’ expense. If DOCCS had done anything about the officers at Marcy who it knew were routinely terrorizing incarcerated people, Mr. Brooks would still alive today. Our deepest condolences go out to his family for his senseless death. “
– Katherine Rosenfeld, Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP
Another lawsuit, naming the Marcy Correctional Facility, claimed that another inmate was similarly beaten in 2020. News 8 is still investigating whether any of the officers named in the lawsuit had any involvement in the Brooks case. News 8 contacted the legal team behind the lawsuit but has yet to hear back.
William Alvarez was incarcerated at the facility in 2020. Officer Caleb Bause allegedly summoned Alvarez twice in February of that year while he was following orders to clean the bathroom.
When Alvarez turned around for the second time, the lawsuit claims the officer “discharged chemical spray” in his face.
Alvarez dashed out of the bathroom and into the main dorm area, only to be met by Bause, who allegedly ordered other inmates to return to their sleeping quarters and called for backup.
According to the lawsuit, officers Caleb Bause, Skyler Tuttle, Anthony Farina, and Sgt. Glenn Trombly responded to Bause’s request for assistance, after he claimed that Alvarez had attacked him.
The lawsuit also claims that Alvarez had his head slammed against a wall several times before being handcuffed and kicked throughout his body and head while lying on the ground. He was then transported to the infirmary.
According to the suit:
“When the van arrived at the infirmary, [Trombly] finally intervened, telling Tuttle, ‘That’s enough,’ whereupon the beating immediately stopped .”
Alvarez was reported to have suffered serious injuries as a result of the incident and required surgery. He also claimed he was left with a “permanent facial deformity.”
Alvarez had nearly completed the facility’s Comprehensive Alcohol and Substance Abuse Treatment program, which would have allowed him to return home before the end of 2020 to care for his cancer-stricken 2-year-old daughter.
However, the lawsuit claimed that a “false Misbehavior Report” from the previous incident put an end to it. Alvarez was allegedly denied early release and instead transferred to the maximum-security Great Meadow Correctional Facility until his release in June 2021.
Last weekend, Governor Kathy Hochul announced her intention to fire the 14 people accused of fatally beating Brooks.
