Bronx DA: Convicted Killer Found Guilty in Beating & Slashing of Fellow Inmate in Rikers Island

Derrick Brank

Defendant Faces 15 Years on Top of Current 50 Years-to-Life Prison Term

         

Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark today announced that a Rikers Island inmate has been convicted of setting a fire in his cell and assaulting a fellow inmate in 2013.

 

District Attorney Clark said, “We will ask for this defendant to get the maximum sentence, consecutive to what he is now serving for a heinous killing, to ensure he stays incarcerated and to send a message that inmate-on-inmate violence must end. We prosecute crimes at Rikers Island to the fullest extent, no matter who the perpetrator is.”

 

District Attorney Clark said that the defendant, Derrick Brank, 23, of 520 East 149th Street, was convicted by a jury on June 22, 2016, of second-degree Gang Assault, second-degree Assault, second-degree Promoting Prison Contraband, and fifth-degree Arson after a seven week trial before Bronx Supreme Court Justice Margaret Clancy. Brank faces up to 15 years in prison, to run consecutively with his current sentence of 50 years-to-life for kidnapping and manslaughter, when he is sentenced on July 14, 2016.

 

According to trial testimony, on October 26, 2013, fires were started simultaneously in four solitary confinement cells at the Anna M. Kross Center, including Brank’s. The Correction Officers put the various inmates in several holding cells while they dealt with the fires. Once they were put in a cell together, Brank and six other inmates assaulted an inmate, Cory Elder, brutally beating and slashing him. After the attack was broken up and the men led out of the cell, Brank was is seen on video with a smile on his face.

 

The six other defendants pleaded guilty before trial to charges including second-degree Assault and third-degree Assault. The victim did not cooperate with the prosecution.

 

Brank was convicted of Kidnapping and first-degree Manslaughter in June, 2014 in Bronx Supreme Court and is serving 50 years-to-life. Brank held a homeless man, Glenn Monroe, captive for two days in August 2010 and assaulted him with various objects, including a knife, and forced him to drink bleach and blinded him with ammonia.  After Monroe died from his injuries, Brank attempted to cover up his crime by setting fire to the victim’s body and the apartment.

 

The case was prosecuted by Senior Trial Assistant District Attorney Lisa Mattaway and Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Smith of the Trial Bureau 30/40.

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