A 24-year-old former prison guard has pleaded guilty to beating inmates, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Willie Redden was a member of the Correctional Emergency Response Team at Macon State Prison in Oglethorpe.   Redden faces a maximum sentence of five years for his part in a 2010 conspiracy with other guards to injure inmates at the facility.

One inmate was beaten until he was unresponsive and had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance.

In Redden's confession, he said the assaults were intended to serve as punishment. To hide CERT's role in the beatings, he stated senior officers instructed him to falsify reports and use a cover story with investigators.

Michael J. Moore, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia, said, "When people are incarcerated, the sentence they are required to serve is their time locked up in prison. It is not a part of their sentence that they be subjected to beatings by the correctional officers."

Redden's sentencing date has not yet been set.

This case is being investigated by the FBI and is being prosecuted by Special Litigation Counsel Forrest Christian and Trial Attorney Tona Boyd of the Civil Rights Division of Department of Justice, with the assistance of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Georgia.