$3.15 Million for Illinois Prisoner Raped by Guard and Then Denied “Boot Camp”
On March 26, 2024, the Illinois Department of Corrections (DOC) signed an agreement to pay $3,150,000 to a former state prisoner to settle her claims that she was raped by a guard and then denied entry to a diversion program based on medications she was prescribed because of the trauma he inflicted.
Jacqueline Farris was detained at Logan Correctional Center on December 26, 2015, when she was sexually assaulted by Erik Kohlrus, a guard assigned to the overnight shift in her housing unit. Farris reported the sexual abuse the next morning. When the guard was then interviewed by a DOC investigator, he admitted to “engaging in sexual activity” with the prisoner and resigned.
Several weeks prior to the assault, Farris pleaded guilty to a Class 4 felony for possession of cocaine. She was sentenced to six years in DOC custody, but it was noted that she met “the eligibility requirements for possible placement in the Impact Incarceration program,” as recalled in the complaint she later filed. The boot camp, a program for certain first-time offenders, would have reduced her sentence to four months. DOC documentation showed that up until the day of her assault, Farris met all the eligibility requirements and was approved for boot camp.
Meanwhile, as Logan’s orientation handbook promised, the prison’s commitment to “ZERO TOLERANCE of sexual abuse” meant that officials were “committed to investigating EVERY allegation, getting services to EVERY victim, and punishing EVERY perpetrator.” As part of the victim services that Farris received, she was evaluated by psychiatrist Dr. Jose Mathews, who diagnosed her with generalized anxiety disorder and prescribed low doses of three psychotropic medications.
Five days later, Farris was reclassified as ineligible for boot camp due to those anti-anxiety medications. Because she couldn’t participate in boot camp, she served three years behind bars before she was eligible for release. Farris then sued DOC, Kohlrus and 18 other employees in federal court for the Central District of Illinois. Proceeding under 42 U.S.C § 1983, she accused them of violating her civil rights by failing to protect her from a known, serious risk of custodial sexual abuse. She also made claims for discriminatory treatment on account of her mental health diagnosis under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. ch.126 § 12101 et seq., and the Rehabilitation Act (RA), 29 U.S.C. § 701 et seq.
Defendants moved to dismiss her ADA and RA claims, but that motion was largely denied on February 13, 2023. Judge Sue Myerscough ruled that DOC’s categorical ban on psychotropic medications for boot camp participants was a per se violation of the ADA, which encompassed Farris’ mental health diagnosis in its description of a “person with a disability.” See: Farris v. Kohlrus, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23805 (C.D. Ill.).
Defendants also moved to dismiss the constitutional claims, but that motion was largely denied on September 29, 2023. They had no right to claim qualified immunity (QI) on Farris’ failure-to-intervene claim, Judge Myerscough said, because existing case-law put them on notice “that being violently assaulted … in prison is a serious harm.” Moreover, just because Defendant guard Alex Adams wasn’t paying attention to the surveillance camera in the laundry room when Farris was raped didn’t absolve him of the duty to intervene. Defendants were also denied summary judgment on Farris’ claim that denying her access to the boot camp program was impermissible retaliation for her First Amendment-protected activity when she reported the rape. See: Farris v. Kohlrus, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 175361 (C.D. Ill.).
The parties then proceeded to reach their settlement agreement, which included costs and fees for Farris’ attorneys from Grady & Kaplan LLC in Chicago. An earlier successful motion for sanctions during discovery resulted in an award of $2,847 on August 13, 2019, to her then-counsel from Loevy & Loevy, also in Chicago. See: Farris v. Kohlrus, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 240529 (C.D. Ill.).
Kohlrus was arrested two years after the assault. His attorney maintained that Farris “manipulated” and “cajoled” the guard into consensual sexual acts, despite laws stating that DOC “prisoners cannot consent to sex with prison staff under any circumstances.” Kohlrus subsequently pleaded guilty to two counts of custodial sexual misconduct, a felony that requires registration as a sex offender. But because he had served in the U.S. Air Force, he was eligible at his 2019 sentencing for the Veterans Treatment Court, which allowed him to have his record wiped clean of the felony, avoiding the onerous requirements of the Sex Offender Registry.
Additional source: WAND
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Related legal case
Farris v. Kohlrus
| Year | 2023 |
|---|---|
| Cite | 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 175361 (C.D. Ill.) |
| Level | District Court |