MARCY, N.Y. – New details have emerged about the injuries that led to the death of Robert Brooks, the Greece man beaten by corrections officers inside Marcy State Prison last month.

According to a court filing, Brooks had a broken nose, severe internal bleeding in the neck and groin areas, and bruises and cuts all over his face, arms, and legs. The doctor who conducted the autopsy listed the preliminary cause of death as “asphyxia due to compression of the neck” and also noted that “the actions of another” caused Brook’s death.  

The autopsy details were included as part of an application for a temporary extreme risk protection order filed by New York State Police in Jefferson County where one of the correctional officers involved lives. That order intended to remove any firearms from his home.

At the direction of Governor Kathy Hochul, the Department of Corrections has moved to fire the 13 correction officers and one nurse involved in the incident. 

As the Attorney General continues the criminal investigation into their actions, the News10NBC Investigative team has found at least two of the officers involved have been sued by inmates or former inmates in the past who claim they too were abused.   

“Mr. Bauer, my client, thought he was going to die the day that he was assaulted by officers…he feared for his life, he was alone in a bathroom being kicked and punched and no one knew he was there, no one knew it was happening and there were no cameras around,” says Katie Rosenfeld, an attorney for former inmate Adam Bauer.

Pictures included in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Bauer show him sitting in the same infirmary where guards beat Robert Brooks, bloodied and dazed, wearing only red shorts in the moments following the incident back in 2020.   

Bauer says he was hit so hard with a clipboard, that the metal clasp left a gash in his head.

“He was kicked and punched repeatedly, he sustained serious injuries. He had to have approximately 20 stitches to the top of his head, he was taken to the outside hospital,” Rosenfeld says.

Bauer was at Marcy Correctional Facility for a non-violent drug offense and had less than a year left on his sentence when this happened.  In the lawsuit, he says he was exiting a bathroom stall, about to light a cigarette with a battery when a guard stopped him and ordered him to stand against the wall for a frisk.  The pat-down quickly turned into an assault with at least four officers kicking and punching  Bauer, according to the lawsuit. 

When he got out, Bauer filed a lawsuit against the officers and the facility, the case is heading to trial.  One of the corrections officers named in it is Nicholas Anzalone, who is also seen in the Brooks’ beating video.

“It was triggering for him (Bauer), this was an extremely traumatic event for him and I think to see somebody else being subjected to a beating in the same prison, involving at least one of the same people who beat him, was horrific,” says Rosenfeld.

On Monday, Governor Kathy Hochul visited Marcy to speak with inmates, name a new superintendent and promise funding for an independent investigation. She also says she will expedite $400 million in funding for more cameras across the entire prison system.

When asked what she thinks of those reforms, Rosenfeld says, “Now that this has become public there is suddenly a big outcry and an interest in fixing the problem and I believe it’s genuine and I’m glad that it’s happened but to really fix the problem we need to look deeper into who are the people running these prisons, who are the people working there? What is the culture that allowed this to occur? It’s not just a question of rolling out some new policies in a day. It’s a question of will they be implemented? Will they be followed? Is there going to be a cultural change that forces the end of these kind of horrific acts.”