ECI officer pleads guilty to covering up evidence in 2021 incident

MARYLAND – A Correctional Officer at ECI has pleaded guilty to charges related to covering up evidence at his job.

32-year-old Daric Evans pleaded guilty on Tuesday to conspiring to obstruct justice for covering up evidence that one of his fellow officers at the institution had unlawfully assaulted an inmate.

According to the guilty plea, on July 12, 2021, Evans learned that another officer at ECI had used force against an inmate. Evans subsequently responded to the scene to help other officers with escorting the inmate to a medical evaluation, during which the inmate reportedly cried and was visibly injured with blood on his face. The inmate also added that he had been assaulted by Samuel Warren, one of the correctional officers.

Evans and several other correctional officers then took the inmate to a cell for a monitored strip search, which was filmed by Correctional Officer David Quillen. After the strip search, Evans and other correctional officers watched the video, and a supervisory officer stated that the video looked back and needed to be deleted. Quillen responded that he would delete the video, and Evans understood that Quillen did so. The supervisory officer also proposed a cover story for why the video was gone, and Evans and the other officers agreed to lie about the deletion of the video.

Evans and the other officers discussed that they would lie to investigators about what happened to the video, and Evans did lie, withholding information from state investigators and lying to federal investigators.

Evans faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on June 27, 2024.

Samuel Warren has pleaded guilty to federal offenses related to the assault of the inmate and is scheduled for sentencing on June 11, 2024. David Quillen has also pleaded guilty in this case and is scheduled for sentencing on May 22, 2024.