Mario Powell has been sentenced to 97 months in prison for assaulting a corrections officer with a contraband weapon at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York. The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge John P. Cronan following Powell’s conviction in September 2025 after a five-day trial.
According to the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, “Mario Powell brazenly ambushed a corrections officer at the Metropolitan Correction Center in New York City, trying to slit his throat. This sentence shows that violence in our corrections facilities will trigger meaningful consequences.”
Evidence presented during the trial showed that on May 30, 2020, while incarcerated at MCC, Powell assaulted a corrections officer using a weapon made from razor blades and caused a laceration to the officer’s neck.
In addition to his prison term, Powell, who is 34 years old and from the Bronx, New York, received three years of supervised release.
Jay Clayton expressed gratitude to former MCC staff for their assistance and commended the Federal Bureau of Investigation for its investigative work.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Thomas John Wright, Henry L. Ross, and Leslie B. Arffa from the Office’s General Crimes Unit.
