Feds charge 2 Philly prison guards with beating an inmate at Curran-Fromhold

Two prison guards were arrested by federal officers Wednesday and charged with beating an inmate at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility on State Road in Holmesburg last year, authorities said.

Guards Robert Berger, 35, and Nathaniel Morris, 47, both of Philadelphia, also were charged with filing a false statement after allegedly excluding details from their report of the incident.

They each could face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The two men attacked the unidentified inmate on Sept. 10, 2018, punching and kicking him multiple times even though he “was compliant and not posing a physical threat to anyone,” according to the federal indictment.

Michael T. Harpster, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia division, said in a statement that incarcerated men and women are supposed to lose their freedom but not their civil rights.

Harpster conceded that prison guards have difficult jobs, but “that doesn’t give them impunity to lash out violently and treat inmates like punching bags."