A former supervisor of the Southern Regional Jail in Beaver, West Virginia, was sentenced to 17 years in prison on Thursday for covering up an assault by correctional officers three years ago that led to the death of a 35-year-old inmate, Quantez Burks.

A federal jury convicted former lieutenant Chad Lester in January of three counts of felony obstruction charges that included witness tampering, conspiracy to tamper with witnesses, and giving false statements. In his efforts to cover up the assault, Lester allegedly threatened subordinate officers with violence and retaliation, added false statements to multiple officers’ reports, and instructed officers to give a false cover story to investigators in addition to personally giving his own false statements.

Seven other officers involved in the fatal assault of Burks pleaded guilty and testified against Lester during his trial last year. Specifically, Mark Holdren, Corey Snyder and Johnathan Walters pleaded guilty to conspiring to use unreasonable force that ultimately led to Burks’s death while Ashley Toney and Jacob Boothe pleaded guilty to “violating Burks’s civil rights by failing to intervene when other officers used unreasonable force.” Steven Wimmer and Andrew Fleshman pleaded guilty to conspiring to use unreasonable force.

Aside from Lester, Wimmer is the only other corrections officer to be sentenced as of Thursday. Five of the remaining officers are scheduled to be sentenced next month while Fleshman’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for July.

Acting US Attorney for the Southern District of Virginia, Lisa Johnston, said after the sentencing:

On the defendant’s watch, correctional officers killed an inmate, and the defendant conspired with them to cover up their crimes…The defendant violated the public’s trust in the law enforcement system he had sworn to uphold

The case was investigated by the FBI field office in Pittsburgh.