A former Loudon County corrections officer has been sentenced to prison after he pleaded guilty to using excessive force, which left a detainee’s skull fractured in January 2021.

Officials say 32-year-old Brian J. Phillips of Georgia was sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee to five months in prison after he pleaded guilty to excessive use of force under color of law. After that sentence, Phillips would be on supervised release for two years.

The incident the charges stemmed from happened on January 25, 2021, when Phillips was employed as a correctional officer by the Loudon County Sheriff’s Office. Phillips was reportedly assigned to monitor a pod of detainees and inmates eating dinner at the jail.

One of the detainees who had already received a dinner tray entered the line to get a second dinner tray, which was not allowed. At this point, Phillips reportedly approached the detainee, and after they had received the second tray of food, Phillips knocked the tray out of the detainee’s hands, sending food into the air.

Phillips grabbed the detainee by the wrist to take control of them, then wrapped his arms around their waist and “hip-slammed” the detainee headfirst into the concrete floor. The detainee suffered a fractured skill and was momentarily unconscious.

The FBI investigated the incident.