Ex-officers in torture case plead guilty

Six former Mississippi law enforcement officers on Monday pleaded guilty to all charges against them in state court related to the torture of two black men in January for two hours. All six had already admitted their guilt in federal court.

Prosecutors say the officers, who are all white, nicknamed themselves the "Goon Squad" because of their willingness to use excessive force and cover up their maleficence, including the attack that ended with one victim, Michael Corey Jenkins, shot in the mouth.

The sheriff whose deputies committed the crimes called it the worst case of police brutality he had ever seen.

The six agreed to sentences recommended by state prosecutors ranging from five to 30 years, although the judge isn't bound by that. Time served for the state convictions will run concurrently with the potentially longer federal sentences they will receive in November.

Their conspiracy unraveled after one officer told the sheriff he had lied, leading to confessions from the others.

All six appeared with their attorneys in Rankin County court on Monday, shackled at the wrists and wearing prison jumpsuits.

They will face federal sentencing on Nov 3.

The former officers pleaded guilty on Aug 3 to federal charges in the case, in which US prosecutors said they kicked down the door of a home in Braxton, Mississippi, where the black men were living and assaulted them for two hours.

On Jan 24, the officers forcefully entered a house without a warrant and handcuffed and assaulted Jenkins and his friend Eddie Terrell Parker with stun guns, a sex toy and other objects.

At the hearing on Monday, the prosecution said the officers kicked the door of the victims' home and began a 90-minute torture session during which they told the men to "stop taking advantage of a white woman who lived there", the prosecutor said.

The officers mocked the two men with racial slurs throughout the ordeal, repeatedly shocked them with electricity volts via tasers, assaulted them with a vibrator, poured chocolate and syrup over their faces and then devised a cover-up after a game of Russian roulette went bad, and one of the victims was shot in the mouth, according to the prosecution.

The six officers schemed to plant drugs and a gun on one of the men and concocted a story that Jenkins was shot because he resisted and went for an officer's gun, justifying the shooting, prosecutors said.

"It's a long time coming," Parker, one of the victims, said on the courthouse steps.

The former police officers include five former Rankin County deputy sheriffs — Brett McAlpin, Hunter Elward, Christian Dedmon, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke — and a police officer from the city of Richland, Joshua Hartfield.

Agencies contributed to this story.