Ex-Rikers guard from LI gets probation for beating cover-up

A former Rikers Island guard from Brentwood who helped cover-up the 2012 beating death of inmate Ronald Spear by another correction officer was sentenced to 3 years’ probation with a curfew for 6 months in Manhattan federal court on Monday.

Prosecutors wanted prison time for Byron Taylor, 33, who pleaded guilty to perjury and obstruction of justice last year and faced 15 to 21 months in prison under federal guidelines. But U.S. Judge Loretta Preska cited Taylor’s quick acceptance of responsibility after he was indicted in 2015.

“There is not a need for incarceration,” she said, citing Taylor’s efforts to help the government after his plea and charitable work in his community. “ . . . You have done as much as you can to try to do the right thing here.”

In the 2012 beating, Brian Coll, a Rikers guard from Smithtown, was convicted of civil rights charges and sentenced to 30 years in prison for headkicking Spear, a diabetic inmate at Rikers on a burglary charge, after the two argued over whether Spear could see a doctor in the infirmary.

After the altercation began, Taylor responded and helped restrain Spear. He did not face any charges related to the beating, but was accused of asking other guards to keep his name out of it and subsequently lying to investigators and a grand jury.

In a letter to Preska seeking leniency, Taylor cited his post-indictment help to the government as they built the case against Coll and other cases at Rikers, and blamed his conduct on a “Blue wall of silence” encouraged by senior staff, supervisors and union reps at Rikers.

“I got caught up in a system that is constantly forcing its officers to ‘look out’ for each other by staying silent or, worse, lying,” Taylor told the judge. “ . . . I was told this is what I was supposed to do, for who I believed was my brother and sisters.”

Defense lawyer Samuel Braverman said Taylor, a Brooklyn College graduate who started a sneaker business while in school, has been working in a soup kitchen for years, and recently has been also working in a family construction and real estate business and volunteering at an AIDs shelter.

Prosecutor Brook Cuccinella told Preska that despite his assistance to prosecutors — Taylor was ready to testify against Coll, but wasn’t called — and good works, Taylor’s lies had delayed the truth for Spear’s family and couldn’t be overlooked.

“It’s too serious to not warrant an incarceratory sentence,” she said.

But the judge, who held a secret meeting with the parties before the sentencing and sealed a letter from the government, disagreed. “You have done as much as you can to try to do the right thing here,” Preska told Taylor.

Taylor will be on probation for 3 years, and the judge also told probation officials to impose a curfew for six months that will restrict him but not interfere with his work and volunteer efforts.