A Louisiana state trooper pleaded no contest Monday to significantly reduced charges that spare him jail time in the deadly 2019 arrest of Black motorist Ronald Greene, the first conviction of any kind in a prolonged police brutality case that once prompted national outrage.
Kory York had faced the most serious charges of five officers indicted in the case two years ago after body-camera video captured him dragging Greene by his ankle shackles and forcing him to lie cuffed and facedown before he stopped breathing.
But instead of the original felony charges of negligent homicide and malfeasance, York pleaded no contest to misdemeanor battery in exchange for a year of probation and an agreement to testify against the lone officer still facing trial.
The plea happened despite vehement objections from Greene's family, which said they had been misled about the terms of the deal and robbed of the chance to see the felony charges play out at trial.
鈥淢y family is a victim and we should have more of a say,鈥 said Greene's mother, Mona Hardin, who refused to sign off on the last-minute deal that prosecutors pushed amid fears York would be acquitted in a conservative corner of the state.
鈥淭his shouldn鈥檛 end today,鈥 she told the packed courtroom. "It's wrong. It's unfair.鈥
District Attorney John Belton declined to say Monday whether justice had been served in Greene's death, noting the case remains open.
Master Trooper Kory York in Monroe, La., on May 10, 2019, after troopers punched, dragged and stunned Black motorist Ronald Greene during his fatal 2019 arrest. (Louisiana State Police via AP)
York鈥檚 no-contest plea is effectively equivalent to a guilty plea but the conviction can鈥檛 be used in the wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Greene鈥檚 family. York, 51, also will retain his nearly $83,000-a-year pension following his August retirement from the Louisiana State Police.
鈥淭his is clearly a victory for Kory York," said his attorney Mike Small. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not an admission of guilt."
It was a dramatic anticlimax for a case once shrouded in scandal, including allegations of a state police cover-up and institutional racism that ignited two still-unresolved federal investigations. In the fever pitch, then-Gov. John Bel Edwards called Greene鈥檚 treatment criminal and racist, and Republican lawmakers threatened to impeach the Democrat over his handling of the case only to abandon a legislative inquiry without even questioning him.
Greene鈥檚 May 2019 death was suspicious from the outset when state authorities told grieving relatives that he died in a car crash at the end of a high-speed chase near Monroe 鈥 an account immediately questioned by an emergency room doctor. Still, a state police crash report omitted any mention of troopers using force and 462 days passed before the state police launched an internal investigation. All the while, officials from Edwards on down refused to release the body-camera video.
But in 2021 The Associated Press obtained and published the footage showing troopers swarming Greene even as he appeared to raise his hands, plead for mercy and wail, 鈥淚鈥檓 your brother! I鈥檓 scared!鈥
Troopers repeatedly jolted him with stun guns, with one wrestling him to the ground, putting him in a chokehold and punching him in the face. One trooper struck Greene in the head with a flashlight and was recorded bragging that he 鈥渂eat the ever-living f--- out of him.鈥 That trooper, Chris Hollingsworth, was considered the most culpable of the half-dozen officers involved in the arrest but died in a single-vehicle crash in 2020 hours after he learned he would be fired.
York could be seen on the video pressing the shackled, heavyset Greene facedown to the ground for several minutes and repeatedly ordering him to 鈥渟hut up鈥 and 鈥渓ay on your f------ belly like I told you to!鈥 Experts said such prone restraint could have dangerously restricted Greene鈥檚 breathing.
Though state police suspended York for 50 hours for his role in Greene鈥檚 arrest, investigators were never able to pinpoint what caused the 49-year-old鈥檚 death. Autopsy reports cited several contributing factors, including troopers鈥 repeated use of a stun gun, physical struggle, prone restraint, blunt-force injury and 鈥渃omplications of cocaine use,鈥 with a forensic pathologist declining to identify which was most lethal.
That ambiguity prompted prosecutors last month to dismiss the negligent homicide charge against York and seek to negotiate a plea deal to the remaining 10 felony malfeasance counts against him.
Greene's death was among several beatings of Black men by Louisiana troopers that prompted the U.S. Justice Department to open an ongoing civil rights investigation into the state police鈥檚 use of force. But federal prosecutors still have not said whether they will file charges in the case following a years-long FBI investigation.
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