Correction officer faces assault charge

A New York City correction officer from Seaford was arrested Thursday, accused of assaulting a jail inmate and falsifying records.

Daniel DiPierri, 35, a city correction officer who until recently was a correction department probationary captain, was charged with assault, false filing and official misconduct.

Four other correction officers, including two Long Island residents, were previously charged in the probe into inmate assaults by correction officers.

"The city has no tolerance for correctional staff who hold their duty in such contempt that they provoke violence rather than stop it," said Rose Gill Hearn, commissioner of the city's Department of Investigation, in a statement.

According to the indictment, officials said, DiPierri is seen on a Jan. 7 Rikers Island surveillance video grabbing, kicking and striking an inmate who did not fight back.

DiPierri, employed by the DOC since November 2006, was a probationary correction captain until this month, when he was demoted to correction officer. He was suspended Thursday from that $77,000 post with this arrest.

Correction officers Louis Pinto Jr., 30, of Hicksville, and Kevin Gilkes, 48, of Brooklyn were charged on May 2 with falsifying business records, offering a false instrument, official misconduct and other related offenses. Gilkes was also charged with assault.

Correction officers Roy Rodney, 37, of Brentwood and Winston Gillon, 30, of Queens, were arrested in March on charges that included assault, false filing offenses and falsifying business records.

All the officers charged were suspended without pay.

All these cases are pending in state Supreme Court in the Bronx.