$250,000 Paid by Nevada to Former Prisoner Denied Colonoscopy Who Developed Stage IV Cancer
by Chuck Sharman
On July 14, 2026, the Nevada Board of Examiners approved a $250,000 payment to Alfred Lajes, 75, a former state prisoner who threatened to sue over the lack of treatment he received while incarcerated by the state Department of Corrections (DOC). The payout meant that Lajes, who is no longer incarcerated, agreed not to sue the DOC for deliberate indifference to his serious medical need, in violation of his Eighth Amendment rights.
Lajes was confined at Northern Nevada Correctional Center near Cañon City in May 2021 when he found blood in his stool. A prison doctor referred him to a gastroenterologist, but after that nothing happened for another 10 months. When he finally got that appointment in March 2022, Lajes received a further recommendation to undergo a colonoscopy, plus an upper endoscopy to examine his upper digestive tract. But that didn’t happen either, for what state Attorney General Aaron Ford (D) called “unknown reasons,” in a memo urging the Board to make the payout.
After Lajes was released in July 2022, he finally underwent a colonoscopy, during which an enormous 25-centimeter (10-inch) mass was found in his colon. Subsequent biopsy testing confirmed it was malignant, and Lajes was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer—meaning that his blood and lymph systems had carried the disease to other parts of his body.
He then filed his notice of tort claim pursuant to the state’s tort claim statute, NRS 41.036. Ford recommended that the state make the payout. He then joined the rest of the Board—including Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) and Secretary of State Francisco V. Aguilar (D)—in voting to approve the settlement, with $500 of the payout coming from the DOC and the $249,500 balance funded from the state tort claim fund.
Lajes’ current health condition was unclear from public records or the Board’s documentation. It did note that no part of the settlement payout was taken by his attorney, Dale Kotchka-Alanes of Womble Bond Dickinson in Las Vegas. See: Lajes v. Nevada, Nev. TC22076 (2026).
Nevada prisons are suffering from a shortage of healthcare staff, as PLN has reported. Just since May 2025, the state has been hit with over $1.7 million in additional healthcare-related legal payouts. Those included a modified $939,000 verdict for prisoner Charles Morris, who was left wheelchair-bound after persistent delays in treating and accommodating his chronic back pain. Another $200,000 went to former prisoner Gregory Wolf, who was left blind in one eye and with only limited vision in the other after healthcare staffers delayed his cataract surgery under a cruel DOC policy that denied vision treatment to any prisoner who retained “one good eye.” Still another former prisoner, Steven Scott, received a $597,500 payout to resolve claims he filed over yet another delayed colonoscopy, which left him to endure radiation treatment for colon cancer after release, plus bowel resection and surgery to put his intestines back inside his body. [See: PLN, Feb. 2026, p.57; Apr. 2026, p.30; and Jan. 2026, p.44.]
Additional source: Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada Independent
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