A state prison inmate remains hospitalized two weeks after he was seriously beaten by at least one other inmate at the Berlin prison last month, the inmate's mother and a top prison official said Wednesday.

Jonathan J. Leite, 28, of Berlin was taken to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon following the Aug. 24 attack. Leite's mother, Linda Leite of Dracut, Mass., said Jonathan is being treated for significant brain damage and multiple fractures to his facial bones.

She also said hospital staff told her it is not known if her son's brain damage will be permanent or if the attack will trigger trauma her son suffered when he battled spinal bifida as a child.

Leite said her son was out of a coma and at times appeared lucid when she visited him Aug. 31. She said the swelling in his brain stopped, but had not gone down.

“He said 10 inmates came in and they beat him and beat him,” Leite said. “They took off because they thought he was dead.”

But Leite said her son's behavior alternated between being alert to not being able to remember what happened.

Leite is upset she only learned of the beating her son got at the Northern New Hampshire Correctional Facility a week after it occurred, when the chaplain called her on Aug. 30.

“He told me Jonathan's brain is swelling and he has brain damage. But he didn't tell me he had been in a coma for five days and he didn't tell me the injuries were done a week earlier,” Leite said.

Maj. Jon Fouts, who is chief of security at New Hampshire State Prison for Men in Concord, confirmed the assault took place, but said he does not know details since it occurred in Berlin.

Leite was transferred to the custody of the Concord prison when he went to Dartmouth-Hitchcock hospital, Fouts said, which is standard practice given the proximity of the Lebanon hospital to Concord.

Colon Forbes, director of investigation for the state corrections system, said an investigation began immediately after the assault. A corrections department investigator is working with state police, who are the lead investigators, Forbes said.

Linda Leite wondered if her son was attacked because he attempted to protect a younger inmate, who had been targeted by a gang in the Berlin prison. Fouts said he has no information to support or refute this account.

Linda Leite said she contacted Concord lawyer Michael Sheehan, who agreed to take her son's case. She wants her son to get the health care and protection he needs.

“I think somebody turned the other way,” Leite said. “I think there was negligence on the part of the guards to protect my son.” Sheehan did not return a call for comment.

Fouts, speaking from his knowledge of the Berlin facility, said “I find that personally hard to believe that any staff member would willfully turn their backs on anything.

“I don't know what she visualized for staff presence. If she is assuming that staff is in every single nook and cranny of a prison at every single moment in time, then she has a misconception of how prisons operate,” Fouts added.

Jonathan Leite was convicted of robbery, first-degree assault and two counts of witness tampering, Fouts said. He entered the state prison system in Concord on May 20, 2010 and transferred to Berlin on July 12 that year, he said. Leite is classified as a medium custody inmate. Fouts described Leite as a “moderate” disciplinary problem, based on the number of disciplinary reports on his record.

In 2010, Concord prison inmate Anthony “Tony” J. Renzzulla suffered severe head injuries from an attack by two other inmates. Renzzulla later died from his injuries. Fouts said that case remains under investigation.

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Kathryn Marchocki may be reached at kmarchocki@unionleader.com.