by Joe Watson
Matthew Ditzhazy, who was acquitted of charges that he murdered his girlfriend’s 19-month-old son, reached a $750,000 settlement agreement in July 2008 with the city of Lincoln Park, Mich., near Detroit, where he spent a year and a half in jail.
Three adults were in the house ...
by Joe Watson
A man who was shackled, handcuffed, and in custody when he was thrown out of a moving, Jefferson County, Illinois transport van was awarded $500,000 in July 2008 after his estate settled in U.S. district court.
The estate of Torrie D. Daniels, represented by Office of the ...
by Joe Watson
Donald Martin, Jr., had been awarded $780,000 in compensatory and punitive damages by a federal jury in July 2008 after he’d sued Cook County, Ill., Sheriff Michael Sheahan and the jail guards who had beaten him as a pre-trial detainee in 2006. But U.S. District Judge Harry ...
by Joe Watson
A former jail administrator in Bastrop County, Texas, agreed to settle a wrongful termination lawsuit for $187,000 against his old boss, a former sheriff who had pleaded guilty to charges of corruption and abuse of power. Charlie Littleton accepted the cash settlement—plus full retirement and healthcare benefits—in ...
by Joe Watson
Etta Traynham, a recreational specialist at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York City’s Federal Bureau of Prisons facility, settled a Title VII lawsuit filed against the Department of Justice for $175,000 in May 2008.
Traynham alleged in a January 2007 complaint filed in the U.S. District Court ...
by Joe Watson
Darren Johnson, a prisoner at Pennsylvania’s State Correctional Institution (SCI)-Graterford, was awarded $65,000 in a U.S. District Court bench trial in July 2008 after Correctional Physician Services (CPS), SCI-Graterford’s private medical care provider, was found to be negligent in treating Johnson’s severe knee injury.
On June 9, ...
by Joe Watson
Lisa Knowlton and her husband, Ronald--both guards at the Morris County, N.J. jail--settled a workplace harassment suit against the county in August 2008 for $20,000 after years of what Lisa claimed was employment and gender discrimination.
Lisa Knowlton became pregnant in February 2000, almost three years after ...
by Joe Watson
Michael Modlenaar, a former prisoner at the Upstate Correctional Facility in Malone, N.Y. settled a 42 U.S.C.S. § 1983 complaint in August 2008 for $3,000 after alleging that multiple prison guards had beaten, harassed and “framed” him, and that medical staff was indifferent to his injuries.
Modlenaar ...
by Joe Watson
Markus Durden-Bey accepted a $2,500 settlement from the City of Chicago in July 2008 after alleging that, during his arrest by Chicago Police for drug possession on Feb. 20, 2007, he suffered numbness, swelling, and bleeding due to shackles placed around his ankles too tightly. He had ...
by Joe Watson
A federal judge returned a bench verdict in favor of Timothy H. Johnson, a prisoner at the Ely, Nevada state prison, in May 2008, awarding the plaintiff $1,514.35 in his suit alleging that he was fired from his prison job for refusing to sign a waiver of ...
