HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A man who attempted to stab security guards at the federal courthouse in Harrisburg was released on parole just seven months ago, after serving decades in prison for third-degree murder, authorities said Thursday.
Joseph Camino, who was shot and wounded in Monday’s attack, was charged with assault of a federal officer and a pair of weapons charges, authorities said. Camino, 56, was in stable condition at a hospital and security guards weren’t injured, the U.S. Marshals Service has said.
No attorney for Camino was listed in court filings and the U.S. attorney’s office said it wasn’t aware of whether Camino had a lawyer. The total maximum penalties for the offenses are 27 years in prison, the U.S. attorneys’ office said.
During roughly 35 years in state prison, Camino filed four federal civil rights complaints about his imprisonment, an FBI agent said in an affidavit.
Each was dismissed by now-retired U.S. District Judge Sylvia Rambo, after whom the courthouse in Harrisburg is named.
In a filing dated in 2017, Camino submitted a 100-page handwritten document describing the beatings and abuse he endured at the hands of prison guards, as well as a litany of fights with guards and inmates.
“So I would file a federal civil rights case to your federal court building, seeking your personal aid into this matter back in 1998-1999 and my civil rights lawsuit case was dismissed by Chief Judge Silvia H. Rambo,” he wrote in it.
In the affidavit, an FBI agent wrote that Camino entered the courthouse’s first-floor lobby, and began brandishing the knife while lunging at and attempting to stab a security guard.
Another guard drew his firearm, ordered Camino to drop the knife and, when Camino didn’t comply, shot Camino, the agent wrote. The security officers are under contract with the marshals service to provide security at the courthouse.
Camino had been living in a halfway house in Braddock, just outside Pittsburgh, the agent wrote.
Camino pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in the 1988 burglary and murder of 90-year-old Ann Duncan in her Homer City home. He testified against an accomplice, who was convicted and sentence to life in prison for fatally beating Duncan, according to Indiana Gazette articles from the time.