BOSTON — When you're already sitting in the Norfolk County Correctional Center, boasting on a recorded jail phone that you're about to "up that rank" by choking out a fellow inmate is not, generally, sound criminal strategy.

Javon Sylvester Coleman — 22, of Boston, and known on the inside as "J-Dott" — allegedly did exactly that. Then, prosecutors say, he did the attack. On camera. In front of corrections officers who had to pull him off.

According to the charging documents, Coleman and his alleged co-conspirators spent the moments before the attack workshopping their approach on a recorded jail call. They discussed the victim's perceived status as an informant and floated ideas that ranged from the medieval to the cartoonish.

At one point, prosecutors say, they discussed finding a mousetrap and putting it on the victim's tongue. In between the mousetrap logistics, they referred to their target by two movie-inspired code names: "Ratatouille" and "Stuart Little."

Coleman also allegedly announced that the attack itself would "up that rank" — a stated intent to raise his own standing in the jail by committing an act of violence against a suspected snitch. He said it, prosecutors say, on a phone the government was recording.

Surveillance video did the rest of the work. According to the complaint, Coleman walked up on the victim from behind while the victim was seated watching television. He allegedly punched him repeatedly, knocked him to the ground, climbed on top of him, and wrapped his hands around the victim's throat — strangling him while calling him a "rat" and a "snitch."

Corrections officers pulled Coleman off the victim. The video, the recorded call, and the officers who intervened form the spine of the government's case.

Coleman faces up to 30 years in federal prison, up to five years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000.