Eric Lau, accused in the murder of a teacher from Valley Cottage, is accused of injuring a corrections officer in the Rockland County Correctional Facility in New City today.
The Rockland County Sheriff's Department said Lau was in the process of being returned to his cell at the jail after an appearance in Rockland County Court in New City when he grabbed a hand of a corrections sergeant and slammed it into a cell door opening.
The sergeant suffered a severe laceration and was sent to Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern to receive numerous stitches. The Sheriff's Department said Lau will be charged additionally with second-degree assault.
Lau, 33, of Valley Cottage, is on "administrative segregation" at the jail as a result of an incident in January 2010, when Lau was accused of attacking a corrections officer.
Under the Administrative Segregation, a sergeant or higher ranking jail officer must be present at all times when the inmate is moved and that handcuffs must be put on or removed through the cell doors.
The Sheriff's Department said that after returning from his County Court appearance today, Lau was asked to place his hands through an opening in the cell door so that his handcuffs could be removed. That's when the latest incident took place.
Lau is accused of killing Robert P. Connor Elementary School gym teacher Jami Erlich, 32, who lived in the same Valley Cottage condo complex as he did at the time of the 2009 killing. Erlich, who was also well-known as a runner at Rockland Lake State Park, was beaten and stabbed to death.
