A federal judge has declined to dismiss the charge against a Colorado inmate for allegedly assaulting a correctional officer, despite the prison deleting video footage from immediately after the incident.

Eric King stands accused of assaulting or obstructing a federal official at the Federal Correctional Institution at Florence. One month after the altercation, his lawyer requested video footage from the prison of King’s transport to a holding cell in a special housing unit following the assault. After learning the prison had not retained the video because it showed King being compliant, the defense moved to dismiss the criminal charge.

“The video from the Special Housing Unit (SHU) demonstrating Mr. King’s compliance was valuable and necessary exculpatory evidence for his complete defense,” King’s motion argued. “The Bureau of Prisons knew of the exculpatory character of the evidence and destroyed the recording(s) in bad faith, against policy, as well as after counsel for Mr. King made a timely and specific request for preservation of the evidence.”

But on Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge William J. Martínez decided King had failed to show that the video would have aided his defense, or that the government acted in bad faith.

“[A]s a practical matter, Defendant’s actions after the alleged assault have arguably little to no bearing on the matter at hand: whether he in fact assaulted Lieutenant Wilcox,” the judge wrote in a Sept. 30 order.

According to the federal government’s description, King was an inmate at Florence on Aug. 17, 2018 when another inmate assaulted a lieutenant. The prison discovered an email King sent to his significant other after the incident, in which he called the assault “one for the home team” and “a win for every prisoner ever. Hard to stop smiling thinking about it.”

Lt. Donald Wilcox reportedly interviewed King to determine whether he posed a threat to prison staff. During the conversation, Wilcox sustained a broken nose and damage to his finger and eye. King claimed Wilcox provoked him, and he hit back in defense. Wilcox claimed King struck him with a fist.

Afterward, King was restrained in a chair and escorted to the prison’s special housing unit. Reportedly, multiple officers were needed to restrain King because he repeatedly try to pull away and continue attacking. After arriving at the holding cell, he was restrained for five hours and taken to solitary confinement at the maximum-security facility at Florence.

King’s motion to dismiss the assault charge included a statement from the lieutenant who investigated incidents between staff and inmates at Florence, saying he did not retain the surveillance video from the special housing unit because King was being compliant. Another officer present during King’s transport said that King had a history of making false complaints and anti-Bureau of Prisons statements, but “he had not been violent toward staff prior to this incident.”

King painted the missing video as something crucial to establishing the credibility of the corrections officers who said he remained aggressive after assaulting Wilcox.

“The case in essence boils down to who threw the first punch and whether Mr. King was responding from a defensive posture,” wrote King’s attorney, Lauren C. Regan of the Civil Liberties Defense Center. “If Mr. King is fighting, resisting or otherwise out of control on the video, a jury may infer he was aggressive and may have instigated violence against Wilcox in the closet; but on the other hand, if King is complaint [sic] and not resisting in the immediate aftermath, a jury may infer that he merely defended himself in response to an assault by staff. The video is key to establishing this question before the jury.”

The government countered that such evidence was not relevant, and in fact would not be allowed to establish King’s character.

“In other words, defendant would not be permitted to argue that his compliant behavior during his entry into the SHU somehow suggests that he is a peaceful person who therefore did not assault the correctional officer earlier in the day,” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron M. Teitelbaum.

Martínez sided with the government. Even if King could show the video would be useful to him, the judge concluded, King had not established the government purposefully destroyed it contrary to prison policy.

The case is United States v. King.