Prison guards beat him and shattered his face. Eight years later, this formerly incarcerated man glimpses justice.

There was little dispute about what happened to Justin Sharples on the second day of his prison stint at the MCI-Cedar Junction in Walpole.

A guard came up behind him on the evening of Sept. 16, 2014, and ordered him to turn around. Sharples obliged, and the guard began punching him in the face. Another guard joined in. Other guards watched. When Sharples picked himself up out of the pool of his blood on the floor, his skull was fractured, his eye socket shattered, and his eye drooped out of place.

The state prison didn’t contest that its employees had launched the attack. In fact, internal affairs investigators found misconduct all around — not just by Robert Grocki and Michael Savastano, the two guards who beat Sharples and faced criminal charges, but by four others who allegedly helped cover it up, according to prison internal affairs reports.

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