A former Canyon County Jail guard appeared in court today on a felony charge of solicitation to commit aggravated battery.
Prosecutors allege on October 8th of 2017 an inmate tried to escape from the Canyon County Jail by attacking a jail guard to get his keys, badly beating him.
Just a few days later, the prosecution alleges 26-year-old jail guard Kade McConnell was upset about the beating of his co-worker. To retaliate, he showed a group of jailed gang members private paperwork showing a list of sex crimes against children said to have been committed by the man who beat the guard,
McConnell allegedly asked the group of gang members to “take care of it.”
The incident is said to have been caught on surveillance video.
While the beating never actually took place, an investigation ensued. After hearing the accusations against McConnell, the judge called the information “extremely troubling.”
"It can't be a good circumstance when the people that are in charge of managing jails and penal institutions are on the inside using inside information to potentially cause harm to one of the inmates they are supposed to oversee,” said Canyon County Judge John Meienhofer.
Due to the fact that McConnell had no prior criminal history and even served in Afghanistan before being honorably discharged from the military, the judge set McConnell’s bond at $15,000.
A preliminary hearing is set for February 20th at 10 a.m.
