State Police Report Two Assaults At Prison

State police report two assaults this week, one of them involving a prison nurse, at Garner Correctional Institution, the state’s high-security prison at 50 Nunnawauk Road.

State police said that on the morning of December 15, prisoner Jermaine Parker, 29, stabbed male nurse Frank Faccin in the back of the neck with a pencil, injuring Faccin.

Faccin reportedly was treated for the injury at Danbury Hospital and then released.

In the case, state police charged Parker with assault on a correction officer and with second degree assault. Parker was scheduled to be arraigned on the charges December 16 in Danbury Superior Court.

Parker is doing a six-year prison sentence on a first degree assault conviction. He was sentenced in April 2001.

Parker’s assault against Faccin is the latest of several such assaults by inmates against prison medical staffers during the past several months.

Also, on December 14, prisoner Mark Edwards, 20, assaulted inmate Gero Ghidinelli, 50, state police said. Edwards punched and kicked Ghidinelli, resulting in a cut above Ghidinelli’s left eye and a red mark on his back, state police said.

State police charged Edwards with third degree assault and with failure to submit to fingerprinting. Edwards was scheduled for a December 15 court arraignment on the charges.

Both Edwards and Ghidinelli are “unsentenced” prisoners, who are awaiting the dispositions of their pending criminal cases.