{"id":253269,"date":"2026-07-27T22:14:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T22:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/253269\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T22:14:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T22:14:06","slug":"man-pleads-guilty-in-deadly-jailhouse-brawl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/253269\/","title":{"rendered":"Man pleads guilty in deadly jailhouse brawl"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Eli Calero, 44, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter for killing another inmate over a newspaper, facing a potential 20-year prison term<\/p>\n<p>SCRANTON, Pa. \u2014 A federal inmate at the Lackawanna County Prison who beat to death another inmate in a fight over a newspaper pleaded guilty Monday to a felony that potentially exposes him to decades more behind bars.<\/p>\n<p>Eli Calero, 44, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wnep.com\/article\/news\/local\/lackawanna-county\/lackawanna-county-prison-eli-calero-michael-jones-jr-brian-gallagher-district-attorney-homicide\/523-a6642f33-1ab8-4d6a-b436-3ca369e95933\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">killing Michael Jones Jr.<\/a> on Sept. 9, 2025, county District Attorney Brian Gallagher said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Jones and Calero fought over access to a newspaper, police have said. Jones died of blunt force trauma to the head.<\/p>\n<p>The felony count carries a potential maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, Gallagher said.<\/p>\n<p>However, Gallagher said that will first have to finish a sentence set to be handed down in federal court for a conviction in a federal drug case.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The killing happened while Calero was in the county jail awaiting trial on that drug case. A jury found him guilty in the drug case on June 29. A sentencing date has not been set.<\/p>\n<p>Calero is slated to be sentenced for the killing in about 90 days, Gallagher said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eli Calero, 44, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter for killing another inmate over a newspaper, facing a potential&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-253269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}