At Least Three Guards Charged for Assaulting Two Massachusetts Prisoners
Jose Crespo and Jeffrey Tapia, both Massachusetts Department of Correction (DOC) prisoners at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, were reportedly involved in an altercation with prison guards on September 18, 2024. The incident led to assault and other related charges against the two prisoners, as well as a third, Heriberto Rivera-Negron. All three prisoners pleaded not guilty and their cases are still active as of late July 2026.
On that same day in 2024, several prisoners including Crespo and Tapia were accused of attacking guards with shivs. Five guards were injured, with one guard stabbed 12 times. Shortly after the attack, which was captured on video, four guards retaliated by beating Crespo, Tapia and Rivera-Negron, according to an indictment filed against three of the guards. Guards Stephen Cobb, Shaun Gould and Paul Birri were arraigned in Worcester Superior Court on July 10, while the fourth guard, Matthew Valade, has yet to be charged.
In court documents, prosecutors allege that Cobb kicked Crespo in the chest while he was shackled and in the fetal position inside of a cell. Cobb was also charged in January 2026 for beating a separate prisoner, Elijah Michonski, at Souza-Baranowski in May 2023. He was released without a bail requirement in both cases.
Gould, prosecutors claim, “used his knee to forcefully strike” Crespo in the abdomen. Birri reportedly slammed Tapia into a concrete wall. Tapia, like Crespo, was shackled and handcuffed, but his assault occurred as he was being escorted down a hallway to appear for a medical evaluation. Birri “grabbed [Tapia’s] head with both heads, pulled it back, and slammed it back into the concrete wall…[his] face slammed against the wall and he slid to the floor,” prosecutors wrote. Valade is accused of striking River-Negron.
Cobb and Birri are “detached without pay” from the DOC while Gould is on administrative leave and Valade resigned in August 2025. PLN will continue to report on this story as it develops.
Additional sources: Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Sentinel & Enterprise
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