Kelly
Corrections officer had left hand amputated due to assault
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WILKES-BARRE — A Wilkes-Barre woman was sentenced in-absentia Friday on charges she assaulted a Luzerne County corrections officer who required amputation of her left hand due to the attack inside the county correctional facility.
Crystal Inez Kelly, 44, an inmate at the State Correctional Institution at Muncy, was convicted by a Luzerne County jury of assaulting a female corrections officer on June 24, 2020.
Kelly was being prepared to be escorted for a video hearing when she refused to have leg shackles placed on her, telling a corrections officer, “No, I’m not a slave, you’re not putting those on me,” court records say.
Kelly was facing a wall as a corrections officer was behind her holding a restraint belt.
Court records say Kelly violently rushed backwards causing an injury to the corrections officer’s left hand. As Kelly was being restrained by other staff, she grabbed and squeezed the injured hand of the corrections officer, court records say.
The corrections officer underwent numerous medical tests for bone and nerve damage eventually having her left hand above the wrists amputated.
A jury convicted Kelly of felony aggravated assault and felony assault by prisoner following a one day trial before Judge David W. Lupas on Dec. 21, 2023.
Kelly, who is serving a one-to-two year state prison sentence on a child endangerment conviction for leaving her 3-year-old son unsupervised for nearly eight hours at her apartment on Coal Street, Wilkes-Barre, on June 18, 2020, refused to appear on video to be sentenced Friday.
Lupas sentenced Kelly in-absentia to 8 years, six months to 25 years in state prison structuring the sentence to begin after she completes the child endangerment sentence.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Chester F. Dudick Jr. prosecuted.