Fired Pa. cop guilty of man's holding cell beating



PITTSBURGH (AP) — A western Pennsylvania police officer who was fired after he refused a random drug test last year has been convicted of beating a handcuffed prisoner in a holding cell and then trying to cover it up.
Walter R. Johnson, 38, of Oakdale, was convicted at a non-jury trial of simple assault and official oppression — the cover-up charge. An Allegheny County judge on Monday also sentenced him to two years' probation and two weeks in jail, though Johnson doesn't have to serve that time until January. Johnson's defense attorney, James Wymard, didn't immediately return a call for comment and the officer doesn't have a listed home telephone.
Johnson was a patrolman in Avalon, a tiny borough near Pittsburgh, when he threw the prisoner, 49-year-old Robert Szilagyi, into a holding cell wall so hard the man's jaw was broken and his teeth loosened — including one later found lodged in his airway. Avalon police alerted Allegheny County detectives after they learned surveillance video of the April 2012 beating existed following Johnson's firing last July.
According to a criminal complaint the detectives filed against Johnson, Avalon police first encountered Szilagyi after a report that he was fighting with another man that night. Police contend Szilagyi ran away before police arrived and was found hiding in bushes, then struggled and fought with officers while they were handcuffing him.
On that night, medics were called to take Szilagyi to a hospital after he was found to have injuries in the police station holding cell — though police at that time attributed the injuries to his earlier struggle with officers, according to the complaint.
The detectives determined, however, that security video from the holding cell showed Johnson walking Szilagyi to the cell at which point he "literally throws Szilagyi, with his hands still handcuffed behind his back, into the cell ... propelling the victim forward with such force as to cause him to leave his feet, hurtling head-first toward the floor and rear wall of the holding cell," according to their complaint.
Another officer enters the cell and leaves with Johnson, closing the door, before a third officer arrives and Szilagyi can be seen "with a large puddle of blood drops on the floor in front of him," the detectives said.
Online court records show Szilagyi pleaded guilty to simple assault, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct stemming from the earlier fight and encounter with police and was sentenced to a year's probation. He could not immediately be located for comment because he's in the county jail awaiting trial on charges including aggravated assault, drunken driving and burglary stemming from two separate and unrelated incidents earlier this year.
Szilagyi's criminal defense attorney for his April 2012 arrest said he couldn't comment on whether Szilagyi pursued a claim for his injuries, citing a confidentiality agreement. Federal and county court records show no record of a lawsuit.

Avalon police officials did not immediately return calls for comment on the verdict, or about the request for a drug test that prompted Johnson's firing.