Carbon County has terminated its prison warden and a corrections officer following the completion of an investigation into a February inmate assault. Both the county prison board and board of commissioners approved the terminations of Warden Timothy Fritz and corrections officer Dexter Sandy, effective April 22, during the commissioners meeting and a reconvened prison board meeting Thursday.

A second corrections officer, Gerard Anthony Babb Jr., 31, could not be terminated because he had submitted his letter of resignation earlier this month, the board said.

“We’re not happy about the resignation,” Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein said.

Babb faces charges of simple assault, two counts; as well as official oppression and reckless endangerment of another person, misdemeanors and harassment, a summary offense, as a result of the incident.

Neither Fritz nor Sandy have been charged in the case that led to the terminations, but have been on suspension with pay since March 17.

Sheriff Tony Harvilla, president of the prison board, read a statement at the end of the meeting regarding the county’s position on the actions.

“The Carbon County Prison Board, on March 17, 2021, became aware of an incident that occurred at the Carbon County Correctional Facility on Feb. 7, 2021, involving Gerard Babb Jr. and an inmate,” the statement says. “The prison board immediately retained an outside law firm who specializes in labor and employment matters to investigate whether any personnel action should be taken against any officers as a result of the incident. On April 6, while the investigation was still proceeding, officer Babb submitted his resignation to the prison board. The resignation took effect immediately. The prison board received a confidential report on April 13, 2021, detailing the results of the investigation.”

Harvilla said based on the report, the county would have requested the termination of Babb had he not resigned; and recommended the termination of Fritz and Sandy.

The charges against Babb stem from an assault on an inmate on Feb. 7.

According to the affidavit, Carbon County Detective Timothy Nothstein received information about the February incident at the correctional facility in Nesquehoning on March 12.

Surveillance footage that Nothstein reviewed showed that at 5:38 p.m., the victim was strapped into a restraint chair in the multipurpose room at the facility and was trying to move or wiggle over to a bunk bed.

The inmate was successful in moving close enough to the bed to pull it.

Two minutes later, Babb and Sandy are seen trying to remove the victim’s grip from the bed, but the inmate was resisting.

Eventually, they move the inmate, still restrained in the chair, to the center of the room.

Nothstein said it is during this time that Babb punches the victim in the face twice and then begins to choke him. He leaves and returns one minute later shaking a canister before spraying the victim in the face.

Two minutes later, Sandy returns to the room and tips the chair that the victim is restrained in and lays it on its back with the victim now facing the ceiling. He then returns and picks up the chair and victim, surveillance footage shows.

Sandy told Nothstein that he only laid the chair down because Babb told him to do so and then returned to right the chair after another corrections officer told him what Babb told him to do was wrong.

Fritz had served as warden at the prison since March 23, 2015, after being named acting warden in November 2014 after then Warden Joseph Gross was terminated from the position.

He had been employed by Carbon County since Dec. 14, 1994. He began as a corrections officer at the prison. Over the years he has worked in the capacity of sergeant, deputy warden and acting warden twice.