Florida Prisoner Released to Die Settles With Centurion Over Ignored Prostate Cancer
In a lawsuit filed by a former Florida prisoner who was released to die from prostate cancer that private prison healthcare giant Centurion allegedly ignored, officials with the company agreed to an undisclosed settlement and claims were dismissed on March 27, 2025. That left claims by Elmer Williams against other defendants from the state Department of Corrections (DOC).
Williams, 56, was 32 when sentenced to DOC custody for a nonviolent burglary conviction. He was treated for prostate cancer, which was in remission, when tests alerted medical staff to a possible recurrence in September 2021. They wrote an “urgent” referral for consultation with a urologist. But that didn’t happen. By the time of his transfer to Suwannee Correctional Institution in November 2021, Williams was having so much trouble walking that he fell while trying to get out of his bunk, injuring his hip, neck and back.
But guard Sgt. Savonia Richardson-Graham allegedly berated him, saying: “I’m not calling a stretcher for you, you can forget that!” She had two other prisoners wheel him in someone else’s chair to Centurion Nurse Jason Howell. Williams then reported the earlier test results that had alarmed medical staffers. But Howell offered nothing more than a muscle relaxer for his pain. Asked if he would order Williams a wheelchair, the nurse replied, “Hell no.” When pressed, he threatened Williams with disciplinary confinement.
The following day Nurse Tony Abbott found the urgent referral from months earlier, but he only questioned whether it had cleared Centurion’s review process. Meanwhile, Richardson-Graham caught Williams writing a grievance about her earlier refusal to accommodate his need for a wheelchair; in apparent retaliation, she got one and wheeled him to disciplinary confinement.
He also grieved Howell’s refusal to get him a wheelchair, but Williams said that Rita Corbin, who was Howell’s co-worker, affirmed the denial; in a maddening bit of circular reasoning, Corbin wrote that wheelchairs must be ordered by higher-level providers—to whom she and Howell refused to forward Willliams’ request.
In confinement, things went from bad to worse, Williams said. He was too weak to walk, but without a wheelchair, he and his cell quickly became soiled with his urine and excrement, angering guards. When Williams attempted to declare a medical emergency, Nurse Jessee Morris just laughed, he said. He was finally released on December 20, 2021, in a borrowed wheelchair. Staff demanded that he sign a refusal of treatment; instead he declared a medical emergency. But that only got him seen, not treated, according to the complaint that he later filed.
Williams spent another month asking for and waiting on treatment, his symptoms worsening. Another prostate-specific anagen (PSA) test was performed, with results four times worse than those that had alarmed staffers months earlier. Yet Centurion Dr. Alexis Figueroa also allegedly did nothing; he didn’t even order Williams a wheelchair. The prisoner was still without any mobility aids when returned to the prison’s general population in February 2022, leaving him to shower while sitting on the floor, despite open wounds on his feet and buttocks.
When finally seen by a urologist in March 2022, his PSA level was over eight times higher than when the “urgent” referral was made months before. That referral finally resulted in a consult with an oncologist in June 2022, but by that point Williams’s cancer had metastasized to his hips, spinal cord and lymph nodes, and he could be offered nothing more than palliative care. Yet even that wasn’t shared with him for another two months.
Attorneys with the nonprofit Florida Justice Institute heard of his case and refiled a motion for compassionate release, which he had previously submitted and which had been rejected. At his release in October 2022, outside doctors gave him six months to live. Attorneys James V. Cook in Tallahassee and James. M. Slater in Atlanta helped him file suit the following month in federal court for the Middle District of Florida, accusing DOC and Centurion of deliberate indifference to his serious medical need. Amazingly, Williams was still alive over two years later, when Centurion settled claims against the firm and its staffers. The case remains pending against DOC defendants, and PLN will share updates on developments as they become available. See: Williams v. Dixon, USDC (M.D. Fla.), Case No. 3:22-cv-01221.
Additional source: Reason
As a digital subscriber to Prison Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.
Already a subscriber? Login
Related legal case
Williams v. Dixon
| Year | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cite | USDC (M.D. Fla.), Case No. 3:22-cv-01221 |
| Level | District Court |
| Conclusion | Bench Verdict |