Huge $27.75 Million Verdict for Montana Prisoner Nearly “Beaten to Death” at CoreCivic Lockup
by Chuck Sharman
A jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana returned a verdict on April 2, 2025, awarding $27.75 million in damages to former state prisoner Nathaniel Lake, after finding that staff of private prison giant CoreCivic failed to protect him from a brutal assault by a fellow prisoner at Crossroads Correctional Center (CCC) in Shelby. CoreCivic moved for judgment as a matter of law (JNOV) or a new trial. But the district court denied that motion on August 6, 2025. See: Lake v. CoreCivic, Inc., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 152374 (D. Mont.).
Lake was convicted of attempting to rape a volunteer at a Missoula homeless mission where he sought shelter, and he was sentenced in 2016 to a 40-year term—with 20 years suspended—in the custody of the state Department of Corrections (DOC). He was released when the state Supreme Court overturned the conviction in 2019, finding the trial court erred in applying the state’s Rape Shield Law to prohibit Lake from presenting evidence that it wasn’t his sperm but that of another unidentified man which was found in the alleged victim’s underwear. See: State v. Lake, 2019 MT 172.
That wrongful conviction wasn’t the end of Lake’s rotten luck, however. In September 2018, while held at CCC, he was subjected to a vicious three-and-a-half-minute beat-down by los Sureños gang member Reid Dannell; for that, the attacker eventually had another 15 years added to the two life sentences he was already serving. When guards found Lake, he was airlifted to a Great Falls hospital, where he spent 33 days in a coma and another four months in the Intensive Care Unit.
Left with “significant permanent physical and mental effects, including speech, gait, and memory impairment”—he has no recollection of Danell’s assault—Lake “will likely require care for the rest of his life,” according to the complaint filed on his behalf. That suit accused CoreCivic of failing to protect him from being nearly “beaten to death.”
Proceeding under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Lake accused CoreCivic personnel of deliberate indifference to his serious risk of harm from Danell, who “testified that he and other inmates were able to move freely between pods,” as the district court recalled when it later denied the company’s post-trial motion. Jurors also heard that CoreCivic “fail[ed] to follow the inmate classification system,” resulting in “prisoners with higher classifications—those considered more dangerous—to be placed with lower-security prisoners, like Lake.”
The complaint also cited a 2016 audit of the prison conducted by the federal Department of Justice, which found “that CoreCivic staffing has routinely been insufficient to provide a safe and secure environment,” and that “CoreCivic had manipulated numbers in its federal reporting scheme to inaccurately reflect enhanced levels of staffing.”
After surviving a motion for summary judgment, Lake’s attorneys took his claims to trial. At its conclusion, jurors agreed that he had carried his burden to prove that Defendants were guilty of failing to protect him from an assault risk that should have been obvious, given the lackadaisical security measures and chronic understaffing at CCC.
CoreCivic moved for JNOV, objecting that the evidence was insufficient to show its staff was deliberately indifferent. But the district court disagreed, noting damning surveillance video that captured Danell chatting with guards as he headed to beat Lake, passing through two locked doors along the way that “required a CoreCivic employee to open them for [him].”
Nine days after that decision, on August 15, 2025, the district court awarded $410,315.50 in fees and costs to Lake’s attorneys, Timothy M. Bechtold of the Bechtold Law Firm in Missoula and John C. Heenan and Joseph P. Cook of Heenan & Cook in Billings. That brought the total award to $28,185,313.50. See: Lake v. CoreCivic, Inc., USDC (D. Mont.), Case No. 4:21-cv-00116.
Calling CoreCivic “a company that flatly refused to accept any responsibility for its conduct,” Heenan told the Helena Daily Montanan “that Mr. Lake didn’t want sympathy, he wanted justice,” which the jury delivered “resoundingly.”
The firm continues to operate CCC, the state’s only private prison. CoreCivic has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to vacate the denial of its JNOV motion. PLN will continue to update developments as they unfold. See: Lake v. CoreCivic, Inc., USCA (9th Cir), Case No. 25-5519.
Additional source: Helena Daily Montanan
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Related legal case
Lake v. CoreCivic, Inc.
| Year | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cite | USCA (9th Cir), Case No. 25-5519 |
| Level | Court of Appeals |