A Warren County man has been sentenced to an additional 5 to 10 months confinement after pleading guilty to a charge of simple assault following an attack in the Warren County Prison earlier this year.

Cody Phinney, 31, was charged in late December 2024 with aggravated assault – attempts to cause serious bodily injury or causes injury with extreme indifference, a class 1 felony, simple assault and harassment – subjecting another to physical contact for incidents that allegedly happened Dec. 10.

Phinney pleaded guilty to simple assault and harassment while a first-degree felony charge of aggravated assault was not prosecuted. Judge Gregory Hammond recently sentenced Phinney to 5 to 10 months of confinement to satisfy the assault plea while no further penalty was assessed for the harassment charge.

The Affidavit of Probable Cause indicates the incident began at 5 p.m. Dec. 9, when video surveillance in the jail shows Phinney arguing with another inmate in the jail before Phinney walked away toward a bathroom area. At 5:08 p.m., Phinney allegedly left the bathroom and approached the other inmate again. That’s when the incident became violent, according to the affidavit.

“The defendant punches the victim in the right side of his face with his right fist, to which the victim falls to the ground,” the affidavit states. “It is shown on the prison video surveillance the defendant punches the victim an additional eight times before another inmate intervenes.”

Photographs taken by Warren County Prison staff on Dec. 9 show the other inmate with a swollen bruise next to his right eye, allegedly the result of Phinney’s first punch, as well as a swollen left elbow sustained when he fell to the ground. According to the police report, the second man needed surgery to repair his injured left elbow while the victim also fractured his left radial head and radial neck.

Phinney had been charged in June after a methamphetamine raid on a trailer in Clarendon. Phinney was sentenced in October 2024 to 5 to 10 months in a state correctional institution and 1 to 2 months in prison to run consecutively after being found guilty of fraudulently altering, forging or counterfeiting title, registration and insurance information and possession of drug paraphernalia to satisfy one set of charges against him filed by the Warren Police Department.

Phinney was also charged in April with simple assault, disorderly conduct engaged in fighting and harassment after an alleged incident in the jail. He pleaded guilty in May to disorderly conduct engaged in fighting with the other two charges not prosecuted.

According to the Affidavit of Probable Cause filed in connection with the April 13 incident, Warren city police officers responded to the jail for a reported assault involving inmates in the facility. A corrections officer in the jail told police officers she was dispatched to a disturbance in the jail’s pod after yelling was allegedly heard coming from the bathroom. The officer reported seeing Phinney leaving the bathroom while experiencing physical fatigue as if he had just done physical labor. Another inmate left the bathroom at the same time. The officer went into the bathroom and found an inmate unconscious with multiple cuts, bruises and bleeding from his face. The inmate was taken to Warren General Hospital for treatment.

“I spoke with the victim, who reports that the defendant waved him into the bathroom, where he began to ask him questions regarding snitching to the Drug Task Force,” the affidavit states. “At this time the defendant struck the victim in the face and then kneed him in the face, causing the victim to fall to the ground. The victim reports that he believes that if the fight had not been stopped, he would have been killed.”

There are no cameras in the jail’s bathrooms, but video footage reviewed by police reportedly shows Phinney sitting at a table before he got up and waved the victim to follow him into the bathroom. Both men enter the room at the same time. Another inmate told police, according to the affidavit, that he walked into the bathroom and saw that Phinney “had him on the ground.”

Phinney had been charged in June 2024 after a methamphetamine raid on a trailer in Clarendon. Phinney was sentenced in October to 5 to 10 months in a state correctional institution and 1 to 2 months in prison to run consecutively after being found guilty of fraudulently altering, forging or counterfeiting title, registration and insurance information and possession of drug paraphernalia to satisfy one set of charges against him filed by the Warren Police Department. Phinney then was sentenced to 2 to 4 months to run consecutively to his first sentence for a charge of fleeing/attempting to elude a law enforcement officer, and two terms of 6 to 12 months to run consecutively for convictions of recklessly endangering another person. Phinney’s sentence for the December fight in the jail will run consecutively to the October sentence.