BECKLEY, W.Va. Federal cases involving Southern Regional Jail remain at different stages after former officer Michael Pack received a two-year prison sentence. Another former officer, Nathaniel Pack, is awaiting sentencing, while a federal appeals court has upheld a former supervisor’s convictions in a separate prosecution.

The next date to watch is Jan. 22, 2027. The Southern District of West Virginia’s court calendar, checked Nov. 1, lists Nathaniel Pack’s sentencing for 11 a.m. in Beckley before Chief U.S. District Judge Frank W. Volk.

Related reporting: Read our updated account of Michael Pack’s two-year sentence and the conduct he admitted. This follow-up explains the other proceedings without treating the defendants, charges or sentences as interchangeable.

Nathaniel Pack’s sentencing is now listed for January

Nathaniel Pack, identified as 29 in a July 23 Justice Department announcement, pleaded guilty to conspiring against inmates’ rights under 18 U.S.C. § 241. Prosecutors said his admitted conduct ran from about April 2020 through March 1, 2022.

The department said he admitted involvement in unjustified force on at least seven occasions. Officers moved inmates to areas outside camera coverage, called “blind spots,” to punish them without creating a video record.

His admissions also included telling medical staff to wait before checking a handcuffed detainee identified in the release as Q.B. on March 1, 2022. According to DOJ, he wanted to give other officers time to use unreasonable force. The release also described false reports that concealed force and injuries.

DOJ said his plea carries a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. A maximum is not a prediction of the sentence.

The July announcement gave a Dec. 4 sentencing date. The court’s current event page instead lists Friday, Jan. 22, 2027, in courtroom 310 in Beckley, under case number 5:26-cr-79. This report uses that court listing. The public event page does not explain the change, and hearing dates can change again.

Chad Lester’s separate appeal has been decided

Former jail lieutenant Chad Lester’s case concerns efforts to conceal the fatal March 1, 2022 assault on Quantez Burks. It is not Nathaniel Pack’s sentencing proceeding or Michael Pack’s two-year sentence.

According to DOJ’s May 15, 2025 sentencing announcement, a jury convicted Lester of conspiracy to tamper with witnesses, witness tampering and making false statements. He received 210 months in prison, or 17½ years.

Prosecutors said Lester threatened subordinate officers, inserted false statements into reports and directed officers to give investigators a false account. They also said he provided false information to FBI agents. Those are findings and evidence described in an obstruction prosecution, not a murder conviction against Lester.

On Sept. 4, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed his convictions and sentence. The appeal was numbered 25-4310, from district court case 5:23-cr-00188-4.

Lester challenged limits on questioning cooperating witnesses about their possible sentences, testimony about earlier alleged excessive force, a limit on time to present his defense, and the reasonableness of his sentence. The three-judge panel found no reversible error. Its brief decision was unpublished, meaning it is not binding precedent in the circuit. The ruling is a completed appellate decision, not an appeal still awaiting that court’s initial ruling.

The accountability issue extends beyond an individual assault

In his May 2025 sentencing opinion in Lester’s case, U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin addressed both violence and concealment. He described testimony that officers used camera blind spots to punish inmates and that Lester directed lower-ranking officers to falsify their accounts.

The judge distinguished reasonable force needed to maintain safety from unconstitutional abuse. He also rejected poor pay, inadequate training and underfunding as excuses for mistreating people in custody. Those were the judge’s observations in explaining Lester’s punishment, not findings that every employee at the jail committed a crime.

That distinction matters when reading the newer Pack cases. Each defendant has a separate record of admitted conduct, charges and punishment. Michael Pack’s Oct. 30 sentencing announcement describes a conspiracy conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 371 and a 24-month sentence. It does not say he was convicted of causing Burks’s death.

What readers should watch next

Nathaniel Pack’s eventual sentencing judgment will establish the punishment imposed in his case. Until then, the scheduled hearing and the statutory maximum should not be confused with a final sentence.

For Lester, the Sept. 4 opinion establishes what the Fourth Circuit decided in that appeal. It should not be described as a new sentence imposed this fall.

The shared setting is Southern Regional Jail in Beaver, West Virginia. Keeping the cases separate makes the record clearer: which conduct a defendant admitted or a jury found, which court acted, and what remains to be decided.