A former deputy sheriff and jail corporal with the Camden County Sheriff’s Office has been sentenced to 16 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for assaulting a pretrial detainee. The incident involved Ryan Robert Biegel, 27, of Kingsland, Georgia, who pleaded guilty to using unreasonable force against the detainee.
Biegel’s plea agreement detailed that on September 3, 2022, he and two other correctional officers entered a holding cell where the detainee, identified as J.H., was being held. The officers restrained J.H.’s arms and pushed him against a wall. Biegel admitted to punching J.H. five times in the back of the head without any legitimate law enforcement purpose and continued to strike J.H. in the head and body an additional twenty-two times with his fists and knees.
The FBI Brunswick RA Field Office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer J. Kirkland for the Southern District of Georgia and Trial Attorney Alec Ward of the Civil Rights Division’s Criminal Section prosecuted the case.
