BY DAN HILDEBRAN
A former correctional officer pleaded to tampering with evidence after being charged with beating an inmate.
According to a complaint by the Department of Corrections Inspector General’s office, the agency found probable cause that Joseph “K.J.” Carabetti, 31, struck an inmate in the face several times after the incarcerated man was taken to a clinic for a seizure.
On November 8, 2023, medical staff at Florida State Prison told an investigator that they stepped out of an exam room while treating the inmate. When they returned, he had sustained additional injuries to his face.
The victim, a 35-year-old male at the time of the incident, told the detective he experienced a seizure while exiting his cell for a shave and shower.
“(The victim) stated the B-dorm sergeant was holding him while he began to have the seizure,” wrote the investigator in the complaint. “(The victim) woke up from the seizure while on the way to medical.”
According to the medical staff. The only injury the inmate had suffered upon arrival at the clinic was a lacerated lip, which the investigator wrote was common during seizures.
The inmate told an investigator that after nurses left his room, a correctional officer, later identified as the defendant, entered the exam room and asked the inmate why he continued having seizures.
“(The inmate) explained that he has been having seizures since he was 12 years old,” the detective wrote in the complaint. “(The victim) stated he was first hit in his chest, where his open-heart surgery scar is. The officer then started punching him in the face.”
The inmate added that after Carabetti struck him around six times, the officer cleaned up blood resulting from the attack using brown paper towels, then tossed them into a nearby trash can. He also said three other correctional officers were in the exam room at the time the defendant punched him.
A nurse told the investigator that she accompanied the inmate from B-dorm to the clinic, then left the room to get a physician. When she returned to the room, the inmate had a swollen face and additional injuries to what he had when he was first brought into the clinic.
She added that the victim told her about the attack and that she observed bloody, brown paper towels in the trash can.
She then left the exam room for a second time to call the Inspector General’s Office, and when she returned, the bloody paper towels had vanished from the trash receptacle.
The inmate told a detective that when the nurse left the exam room, Carabetti returned, got the paper towels out of the trash can, and stuffed them in his pocket.
The state initially charged Carabetti with battery on an inmate by a DOC employee and tampering with physical evidence.
During an April 16, 2025, hearing, prosecutors announced they were dropping the battery charge.
Judge James M. Colaw sentenced the 31-year-old to 18 months’ probation and withheld adjudication, following the terms of a plea agreement between the defense and prosecutors.
