LEXINGTON, Ky. – Former Federal Medical Center Lexington Correctional officer, Ryan Carnahan, 32, pleaded guilty on Tuesday, before U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell for deprivation of rights resulting in bodily injury and making a false report.
According to his plea agreement, on June 28, 2025, Carnahan was on-duty at FMC Lexington when he decided to make entry into the cell of a Special Housing Unit inmate after getting into a verbal altercation with the inmate. Carnahan, along with two other officers, made entry without the inmate or his cellmate being placed into handcuffs. When Carnahan entered the cell, he began slapping the inmate’s face. As a result of being slapped, the inmate hit Carnahan, who then grabbed the inmate and punched him.
After the incident, Carnahan wrote a report that the inmate had been handcuffed before he and the other officers went into his cell, and that Carnahan was searching the cell when the inmate slipped his handcuffs and assaulted him. Carnahan admitted in his plea agreement that he wrote these things knowing that they were false, but that he wrote the false report to impede the administration of justice regarding the investigation of the unlawful assault on the inmate.
Jason Parman, First Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky; and Matthew Loux, Acting Special Agent in Charge, Department of Justice Office of Inspector General, Chicago Field Office; jointly announced the guilty plea.
The investigation was conducted by DOJ-OIG. The U.S. Attorney’s Office was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Greenfield.
Carnahan is scheduled to be sentenced on August 20. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.