New York prison guard in inmate death case gets last-minute reprieve

By Joseph Ax NEW YORK (Reuters) – A former supervising guard at New York City’s Rikers Island, convicted of refusing to help a dying inmate at the troubled jail complex, convinced a judge to postpone sentencing on Thursday when he claimed at the last minute that his lawyer had not represented him properly. Terrence Pendergrass, 51, was found guilty in December in New York of a federal civil rights crime for failing to summon medical assistance for Jason Echevarria, a mentally ill prisoner who died hours after swallowing a toxic “soap ball” used to clean cells. Pendergrass, who faces up to 10 years in prison, was perhaps seconds away from hearing U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams impose his sentence when he claimed his lawyer, Sam Braverman, had not done a good job.
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