BORDERLAND

Ex-Toledo inmate guilty of assaulting guard

5/28/2014
BLADE STAFF

A former inmate at Toledo Correctional Institution pleaded guilty Tuesday to felonious assault for biting a corrections officer at the prison.

Fred Joseph, Jr., 48, was then sentenced by Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Stacy Cook to two years in prison, although she ordered that the sentence run at the same time as the life sentence he already is serving for the aggravated murder of a Niles, Ohio, police officer in 1982. Joseph was denied parole in 2012 after serving 30 years and is to have another parole hearing in 2022.

Thomas Puffenberger, an assistant Lucas County prosecutor, told the court that on Aug. 9, Joseph got into an argument with a corrections officer who ordered him to get up against the wall. When Joseph didn’t obey his order, he felt threatened and took him down to the floor. There, he said, Joseph bit down on the guard’s arm twice and “didn’t let go until he was forcibly removed.”