MyNewsLA.com
3/1/22
A jail inmate who was charged last year with punching a female custody assistant five times in an attack captured on video surveillance has been sentenced to six years in state prison.
Arnulfo Meza, 30, pleaded no contest Monday to a felony count of assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury, according to Ricardo Santiago of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
The attack occurred on May 5 at the Inmate Reception Center in Chinatown after Meza’s left hand was unlocked from his waist chain when he asked to use the restroom, according to a statement released last year by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
The video shows a man punching the 54-year-old custody assistant three times in the face after she handed him toilet paper and twice more after she fell to the ground. The inmate sat down on a gurney as sheriff’s department personnel arrived to assist the woman. He offered no resistance as he was secured to a gurney.
The woman, whose name was withheld, suffered trauma to her face and head and was treated at a hospital, according to the sheriff’s department.
Meza was subsequently taken to a high-security area of the Inmate Reception Center and charged two days later with the assault.