A Walker County sheriff’s deputy has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges involving the mistreatment and abuse of Tony Mitchell, who later died while in the custody of the jail.

Carl Lofton Carpenter, 55, will plead guilty to two counts of deprivation of rights, according to court documents made public Tuesday.

In pleading guilty, records state, Carpenter stipulated to the government’s claims that he “stomped on (the inmate’s) genitals with a shod foot” while Mitchell lay face up on the ground, handcuffed behind his back and that he “rammed” the inmate into the exterior of a patrol vehicle and kicked his legs.

The plea agreement states Carpenter stomped on Mitchell’s genitals out of anger “because he had become accustomed to harming arrestees unnecessarily consistent with the ‘culture’ of the Walker County Sheriff’s Office.”

Carpenter’s agreement also says that at the time of Mitchell’s arrest, Mitchell was evaluated by emergency medical personnel in the presence of Walker County Sheriff Nick Smith.

Smith determined that Mitchell would be transported to the jail despite Mitchell “demonstrating symptoms of severe mental illness, including expressing delusions related to demons and portals” to hell.

Smith did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Carpenter and Deputy James Matthew “Matt” Handley were indicted in March. Handley is also charged with lying to a federal grand jury.

The sentence for a deprivation of rights conviction is a maximum of 10 years in prison and a fine of not more than $250,000.

Mitchell was arrested Jan. 12, 2023, during a mental health welfare check at his home. Authorities said he fired a gun while deputies were on his property.

Deputies responded that Thursday afternoon to Lost Creek Road near Carbon Hill on a welfare check after family members of Mitchell feared he could harm himself or someone else.

On the day he was arrested, Mitchell covered himself in black spray paint and claimed to have a “portal to hell.”

Carpenter was one of the officers who walked Mitchell to where the police vehicles were parked.

Mitchell, authorities said, was complaint, obeyed commands, and posted no threat of harm to the officers, himself or anyone else other than to continue to “mutter” his delusional comments.

At one point, according to the plea agreement, Mitchell “stiffened momentarily” but did not pull away or make any aggressive moves toward law enforcement.

“In response and out of anger,” the records state, “Carpenter threw (Mitchell) to the ground where he fell on his side.”

Mitchell was handcuffed, and on his back on the ground, when Carpenter raised his booted foot and brought it down with force on Mitchell’s genitals, saying words to the effect of “this is how we treat seizures in Walker County,” the plea agreement states.

The statement says that when Carpenter and “Officer 1,” believed to be Handley, became aware that the federal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the arrest and detention of Mitchell had turned to them, “they agreed that they would each tell federal investigators the same false version of events.”

Specifically, documents state, they agreed to say Mitchell was passively resisting officers during the escort from the barn where he was taken into custody.

In truth, the plea agreement says, Carpenter knew Mitchell was compliant, threw him to the ground and stomped on his genitals, to “punish him and inflict pain without a legitimate law enforcement reason to do so.”

Mitchell died two weeks after his arrest.

Subsequent court documents have detailed the horrific conditions of his time in the jail and death.

The county coroner’s death certificate listed Mitchell’s manner of death as homicide and listed the causes as hypothermia and sepsis “resulting from infected injuries obtained during incarceration and medical neglect.”

When Mitchell arrived at the jail, the documents state, he had difficulty walking or standing on his own. He was disoriented, non-combative, and could not follow instructions.

“His face was painted blue from an unknown substance and officers dressed him in a ‘turtle suit,’ often used for suicidal inmates, over his otherwise nude body.

Mitchell, however, was not put on suicide watched.

Mitchell was held in an area known as BK5, often referred to as the drunk tank.

BK5 was unlike all other cells in the jail, but for observation cell AH3, which had no hole in the floor and was used only for detainees for hours at a time.

It did not have a sink, toilet, access to any running water or a raised platform to be used as a bed.

Court records show Mitchell never received any medical evaluation until the morning of his death, two weeks after he was arrested.

In fact, jailers actively denied Mitchell medical access by falsely telling medical staff that Mitchell was too combative to be evaluated “when in truth that was not the case,” documents state.

“Calling (Mitchell) combative was an excuse to mistreat him,‘’ documents state. “There was no conduct that could have been committed by (Mitchell) that would have justified the denial of medical access.”

The efforts to deny Mitchell medical and mental health care persisted event though he was frequently expressing severe mental health symptoms such as talking incoherently about “demons” and “portals.”

“He was often covered in feces, which was an indication that he could not care for himself,‘’ records state.

Mitchell deteriorated over the course of his incarceration.

“At the time he passed, (Mitchell) was almost always naked, wet, cold, and covered in feces while lying on the cement floor without a mat or blanket,‘’ the records state.

By the second week of being jailed, records show, Mitchell was largely listless and mostly unresponsive to questions from officers.

Repeatedly during Mitchell’s incarceration, records show, corrections officers actively chose not help him, and would dismiss his needs by saying, “(Expletive) him, he gets what he gets since he shot at cops, or words to that effect,‘’ the document states.

The officers also repeatedly made comments that Mitchell “should have been killed because he shot at deputies rather than being brough to the jail,‘’ the document says.

On the morning of January 26, 2023, a nurse repeatedly told jailers that Mitchell urgently needed to be taken to a hospital, or he could die.

They did not call an ambulance and instead waited more than three hours before taking him to the hospital in the back of a patrol car.

When he arrived at the hospital, Mitchell’s internal body temperature was reportedly 72 degrees.

Doctors tried for three hours to resuscitate him before he was declared dead at 1:15 p.m.