In April 2012, on a cellblock for inmates with mental illnesses, five Rikers Island guards and a captain hogtied Robert Hinton, cuffing his hands behind his back and shackling his ankles, then carried him face down, by his arms and legs, into a solitary confinement cell.

When they emerged 10 minutes later, Mr. Hinton’s nose was broken, his eyes were swollen shut, he was bleeding from the mouth and had a fractured vertebra.

In past Rikers Island brutality cases, correction officers have frequently managed to escape serious punishment. But in a highly unusual legal decision published on Monday, Tynia Richard, an administrative law judge, wrote that the six officers had lied about what had happened; that Mr. Hinton had been handcuffed during the entire episode, and that because such “brazen misconduct” must be put to an end, she was recommending the most severe sanction available: termination of employment for all six.

“Hopefully, it will help break the vise grip that silence and collusion played in this incident,” she wrote.