DEWITT, NY – In a shocking turn of events that gripped an Upstate New York courtroom, the testimony of a man subjected to unimaginable torture ultimately secured the conviction of his one-time friend — and tormentor.
Jhomiel Brown, a survivor of a sadistic ordeal, described in vivid detail how Shah Powell imprisoned him inside a shed in the town of DeWitt in the fall of 2023. The testimony, chilling in its candor, left jurors visibly shaken as Brown recounted acts of violence inflicted by a man he once trusted.
According to Brown, a routine interaction escalated into a nightmare when Powell, 36, launched a savage attack, beating him with metal rods, biting him, and repeatedly burning him with cigarettes. At one point, Brown slipped into unconsciousness, only to awake to find his wrists and ankles tightly bound together with duct tape.
The most grisly moment came when Powell, intent on inflicting further pain, forcibly extracted Brown’s two front teeth with a pair of pliers. This act, Brown told the court, pushed him to the brink of despair. Yet in a desperate bid for survival, as the courtroom learned, Brown managed to seize one of his own teeth, using it to slowly saw through the bindings and free himself from captivity.
During the trial, Powell took the stand and insisted Brown’s injuries were the result of a fight linked to a drug deal gone wrong, a claim prosecutors flatly rejected as an attempt to deflect responsibility for the horror inflicted. Investigators found Brown’s account credible, as physical evidence supported his allegations.
Powell, confronted with the mountain of evidence and Brown’s gripping testimony, watched as the jury returned a guilty verdict for kidnapping and torture. The emotional moment saw Powell, overwhelmed by the outcome, lash out and punch a courthouse wall.
In the sentencing phase, prosecutors argued that Powell showed no remorse for his actions and warned that his behavior revealed a dangerous capacity for brutality. Despite his attorney’s plea for leniency, Powell faced a judge unpersuaded by arguments tied to the rejected plea deal, which would have offered a far shorter prison term.
The judge described the attack as “barbaric” and dismissed any notion that the sentence was retribution for Powell’s decision to fight the charges in court rather than accept responsibility. Instead, the sentence, the judge declared, was shaped entirely by the savagery of Powell’s actions.
When the final gavel fell, Shah Powell was ordered to serve 50 years behind bars, bringing a close to a case that shocked the local community and left a survivor forever marked by the violence he endured.