Inmate Punches Corrections Officer In Face

NEW WINDSOR, NY — An Orange County Jail inmate was sentenced for assaulting a corrections officer.

Anthony Wilmot-Francis, 26, of New Windsor, was sentenced in Orange County Court to five years in state prison for the assault. He was also sentenced to state prison on two other felony charges, District Attorney David M. Hoovler said Wednesday.

Prosecutors said Wilmot-Francis was arrested Sept. 27, 2019, after hitting a car with a shopping cart, illegally entering a car dealership and stealing a car and almost hitting a school bus with children in it before crashing into a telephone pole.

He pleaded guilty to first-degree reckless endangerment Dec. 23, 2019.

Wilmot-Francis was arrested Jan. 27, 2020, for damaging walls, cameras, phones and alarms while being treated at Orange Regional Medical Center.

While he was an inmate in the Orange County Jail, Wilmot-Francis assaulted a county sheriff's corrections officer March 11, 2020, by hitting the officer in the face multiple times and throwing chairs at the officer.

He pleaded guilty April 20 to second-degree criminal mischief, in connection with the property damage at the medical center, and second-degree assault for hitting the corrections officer.

Besides the five years in prison and three years' post-release supervision, Wilmot-Francis was sentenced Wednesday to one to three years in state prison for criminal mischief and two to six years for first-degree reckless endangerment. The sentences will run concurrently.

Hoovler said Wilmot-Francis' case underscores the dangerous and difficult job that corrections officers perform.

"While outside of a correctional facility, this defendant endangered others, including children and innocent motorists, and purposely destroyed property, even of those who were trying to help him," he said.

"He became no less dangerous when he was incarcerated in the jail and savagely attacked an Orange County Sheriff's Office corrections officer," Hoovler said.

Corrections officers generally work in settings where they are outnumbered by inmates and without weapons, he said, and they deserve the public's admiration and thanks.

"They risk their lives and safety to protect us, each other, and the inmates in their case," Hoovler said. "Those who assault corrections officers deserve severely enhanced sentences."

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