Souza-Baranowski inmate gets 2½ extra years for attack that scarred prison guard

WORCESTER — An inmate authorities say started an attack that scarred a prison guard at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in 2019 was sentenced to 2½ additional years in prison Wednesday in Worcester Superior Court. 

Ryan E. Tottenham of Harwich, who is serving a 10- to 12-year sentence in connection with a 2012 home invasion in Yarmouth, pleaded guilty to multiple charges of assault and battery on a corrections officer at the Shirley maximum security state prison.

Prosecutors have alleged that on Nov. 7, 2019, Tottenham and another inmate, Shawn Harlow, beat a guard at Souza-Baranowski as he was making rounds. 

Tottenham struck the guard twice in the back of the head as he reached to take something down from inside a cell, they’ve said, which caused him to strike his head on a metal doorframe.

The guard’s head was split open above his eye when he hit the frame, prosecutors say, causing a scar that remains.  

Assistant District Attorney Tiffany A. Scanlon had requested a three- to four-year term for Tottenham.

Judge James Gavin Reardon Jr. issued a 2½-year term, telling Tottenham he will be at immediate risk of going back to prison should he reoffend upon his release. 

Reardon said he hoped the man would continue to make progress treating mental health issues he said the man’s lawyer had detailed to him before sentencing. 

Reardon remarked the man had a “significant” history of violence outside, and now inside, of prison. 

“You simply can’t attack guards this way,” Reardon said. 

Reardon told Tottenham he was fortunate that prosecutors dropped a mayhem charge that could have added more time to his sentence. 

“I do appreciate it, thank you,” Tottenham said before being taken back to prison. 

The other inmate, Harlow, pleaded guilty to charges related to the assault in August. He received an additional 1½ years on a six- to seven-year sentence he is serving for armed robbery. 

Souza-Baranowski, located on the Lancaster-Shirley line, is the state’s only maximum-security prison. The attack for which Harlow was sentenced happened two months before a melee in the prison in which 16 inmates were charged.

Contact Brad Petrishen at brad.petrishen@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @BPetrishenTG