Bay man charged in prison assault
HALIFAX — Jimmy Melvin Jr. of Halifax and Morgan Mcneil of Glace Bay have been charged with aggravated assault in the beating of an inmate at a New Brunswick prison in September.
New Brunswick RCMP announced the charges against Melvin, 38, and McNeil, 29, in a news release Wednesday.
Joshua Preeper was taken to hospital with life-threatening head injuries after he was attacked in a recreation yard at the Atlantic Institution in Renous on Sept. 26.
The incident was captured on surveillance video that was entered as evidence last month at a sentencing hearing for Melvin in Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Halifax.
Melvin was convicted of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder in connection with a foiled plot to kill rival gangster Terry Marriott Jr. in December 2008. The Crown wants him declared a dangerous offender and locked up indefinitely.
Mcneil was charged with second-degree murder for his involvement in the May 2012 killing of Laura Jessome, 21, in Glace Bay but pleaded guilty in 2016 to manslaughter. Jessome's remains were discovered in a hockey bag in the Mira River. Mcneil received a seven-year sentence, to be served consecutively to an earlier eight-year sentence for charges from an armed robbery.
The prison video shows the three men were in the recreation yard for about a halfhour before Melvin punched Preeper in the head, knocking him to the ground. Melvin and Mcneil then kicked Preeper while he was on the ground.
Melvin stomped on Preeper's head about nine times and followed that up with more than a dozen soccer-style kicks to the head. Mcneil and Melvin high-fived each other before correctional officers entered the yard and took them away.
RCMP said Melvin and McNeil both face two counts of aggravated assault. They will be arraigned Feb. 25 in New Brunswick provincial court in Miramichi.
Preeper remains in hospital. RCMP said his injuries are still serious but are now not considered life-threatening.
Preeper, 28, of Kennetcook, is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the November 2011 killing of Melissa Dawn Peacock in Hants County. His brother Dustan, 32, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the slaying.