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WILKES-BARRE — The “Dallas 6” are perhaps one less.
Derrick Stanley, 44, entered a plea of no contest to a single count of resisting arrest Friday at the outset of a lengthy hearing to address outstanding issues in the nearly 5-year-old case.
Luzerne County prosecutors added the misdemeanor count and withdrew a felony riot charge.
Judge Lesa S. Gelb sentenced Stanley to 95 to 190 days in prison, but he was released after receiving credit for 196 days served.
Stanley was among a group of state inmates — known to supporters as the Dallas 6 — facing riot charges after authorities say the men covered and tied their cell doors in April 2010, requiring correctional officers to forcibly remove them from their cells at State Correctional Institution at Dallas.
The inmates claimed prison officials were acting in retaliation after the men filed complaints against several correctional officers.
Andre Jacobs, 32, Carrington Keys, 34, Duane Peter, 43, and Anthony Locke, 36, comprise the case’s remaining co-defendants.
Much of the hearing focused on a video showing the extraction of Locke from his cell on the day of the alleged riot.
Locke’s attorney, an animated Ernie Preate, accused Assistant District Attorneys James McMonagle and Thomas Hogans of prosecutorial misconduct, claiming they sent him a redacted copy of the video with malicious intent despite Gelb’s order to provide the full version.
Preate said the missing section contained important evidence.
McMonagle said the District Attorney’s Office accidentally mailed a disc containing the redacted version — in a sleeve labelled “Must Redact” — but corrected their mistake upon learning of it. He said the full version was sent to the case’s previous attorneys and also to the inmates.
According to McMonagle, Preate still had access to the full video even before he provided a copy that was not redacted, as it had already been posted to YouTube by the defendant’s supporters.
“I don’t practice law by looking at YouTube,” Preat said. “I practice law by the rules of criminal procedure.”
Preate’s arguments seemed to infuriate McMonagle to such a degree that he at one point stormed out of the courtroom, returning moments later to a warning from Gelb to not repeat his exit.
Preate later called both McMonagle and Hogans to the witness stand, grilling them on why the redacted disc existed and how it could have slipped into the case’s discovery.
Both attorneys testified that the District Attorney’s Office considered entering redacted versions of videos showing the inmates’ extractions because of safety concerns raised by the state Department of Corrections.
However, they said they decided to provide the full versions instead.
Neither attorney said he could be certain who created the redacted copy.
Defendants Jacobs and Keys also asked questions of the prosecutors, but were met with very limited responses as Gelb scrutinized the relevance of their inquiries.
Preate then called Jacobs to the stand, asking him a very few questions before launching into multiple tirades decrying the fact that only he received the redacted video.
Gelb expressed skepticism about Preate’s misconduct allegations, but offered no official opinion.
The hearing’s remainder saw a motion to dismiss charges based on a claim that prosecutors presented insufficient evidence at a preliminary hearing to forward teh charges to court.
Preate and defense co-counsel Michael Wiseman argued that prosecutors had the extraction videos which they claim would exonerate their clients. McMonagle countered that prosecutors need not present all their evidence at that stage of proceedings.
Gelb again expressed skepticism toward the defense’s claims, but did not offer an opinion.