BECKLEY, W.Va. – A former West Virginia correctional officer was convicted by a federal jury on charges relating to the death of an inmate at Southern Regional Jail in 2022.
The DOJ said 35-year-old Chad Lester was convicted of conspiracy to engage in witness tampering, witness tampering, and making false statements in connection with an assault by other correctional officers that resulted in the death of an inmate, who was identified by the initials Q.B.
“Mr. Lester was the ringleader of the effort to cover up this horrific beating and keep the truth from the light of justice. He obviously failed at that,” said United States Attorney Will Thompson.
The DOJ said that evidence showed that Lester conspired with other officers to cover up the use of unlawful force on Q.B. The DOJ said Lester instructed correctional officers to give false statements to state investigators and added false and misleading information to a correctional officer’s official jail incident report. The DOJ also said in Oct. 2023, Lester made false statements to the FBI about the circumstances surrounding Q.B.’s injuries and death.
Lester also told correctional officers to include false information in their incident reports and leave out relevant and truthful information about the incident, the DOJ said. The DOJ said Lester retaliated against officers he thought gave truthful information to state investigators by threatening to assault them and by giving them difficult and undesirable work assignments.
Lester is scheduled to be sentenced on April 16, and faces a maximum penalty of 45 years in prison.
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