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The vicious beating of a Pennsylvania inmate awaiting sentencing on a child pornography charge has raised troubling questions about prison justice inside a Scranton lockup.

Nicholas Pinto kept a diary in which he claimed to have endured months of physical, sexual, and mental abuse at Lackawanna County Prison. He says guards roughed him up and a fellow inmate repeatedly raped him.

Pinto feared for his life, yet the officials responsible for his safety appear to have ignored his pleas for help. What came next was perhaps inevitable.

The 29-year-old former Connecticut man was heading back to his cell block from a recreation area when he was ambushed by an inmate with a history of violence who was supposed to be locked down, but wasn’t.

The inmate knocked him to the floor and stomped on his head at least 15 times, according to a police report. Pinto’s face was shattered, and he suffered brain injuries that left him comatose.

Multiple investigations are being conducted to try to get to the bottom of how and why Pinto’s attacker was allowed to get near him, and a federal civil rights lawsuit is being prepared.

Critics of Lackawanna County Prison in Scranton say the near-fatal assault is part of a pattern in which correctional officers target inmates they don’t like.

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