By Stephen Betts
Bangor Daily News
PORTLAND, Maine — Knox County has reached a partial settlement in a lawsuit brought by the mother of an inmate who suffered significant brain damage in an attempted suicide nearly five years ago.
The attorney for Knox County, Peter Marchesi, said Tuesday he did not want to reveal details of the partial settlement that was reached because the case against two county correction officers remains.
The lawsuit was filed in September 2011 by Cathy Penn of Waldoboro, the mother of Matthew Lalli who was found hanging in his jail cell Oct. 5, 2009. Her lawsuit states that her son, who was 22 at the time of the incident, suffered permanent severe brain damage, and the cost of care in an institution will exceed $9 million.
Penn alleged in her lawsuit that the county violated her son’s constitutional rights by its deliberate indifference to his threats that he was going to kill himself.
In September, a federal judge dismissed the case against the county, the sheriff’s office, the jail, Sheriff Donna Dennison, Jail Administrator John Hinkley, supervisor Kathy Carver, and officers Warren Heath IV and Julie Stilkey.
Both sides filed appeals to the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston. The partial settlement recently was reached with the county, however, and as a result, the claims against Christopher Truppa, Robert Wood, Warren Heath III and Bradley Woll were dismissed.
That leaves only officers Angela Escorsio and Dane Winslow as defendants. Winslow was shift supervisor when Lalli was brought in. Escorsio was a corrections officer on duty the day Lalli tried to kill himself.
Marchesi said if the county wins the appeal before the First Circuit Court on behalf of Escorsio and Winslow, the case will be over. If not, Penn’s civil case against those two officers could go to trial.
According to testimony obtained through depositions taken of various jail officials and included in the court records, the following version of events occurred.
Lalli had been arrested Saturday, Oct. 3, 2009, for assault and was taken to the Knox County Jail. He also was charged with violating his probation for being intoxicated.
Lalli had struggled with mental health and substance abuse problems for years. He had been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric addiction and recovery center at Pen Bay Medical Center in Rockport two weeks before his arrest. Lalli and his then 3-year-old daughter lived with Penn.
On Monday morning, Oct. 5, Lalli stated to a jail guard that if he could not get out of jail that day to see his daughter, it would be better if he was not alive at all. At his initial court appearance that afternoon on the new charges, Lalli was overheard by several people, including an assistant district attorney, that he had nothing to live for if he could not be released and see his daughter.
The judge at the hearing ordered Lalli held without bail. Lalli became upset and began crying. As he was being returned to the jail, he was screaming hysterically and threatening suicide, according to the documents.
The jail van returned Lalli to the jail at about 2:35 p.m. At the jail, Lalli made several loud threats to kill himself, the documents indicate. Lalli was strip searched at 2:52 a.m., and he still was crying. He was allowed to make a telephone call, and an officer heard him say he would rather die if he could not have his daughter.
Assistant Jail Administrator Carver directed that Lalli be put on a suicide watch.
There were two cells at the jail for inmates at risk of suicide. One was occupied by another male on watch. The other was vacant, but it was adjacent to a cell occupied by a female. Jail officers decided to move her to another cell so Lalli could be in the suicide watch cell.
But at 3 p.m., he was placed in a regular cell, and his bedding was not removed while jail officials attended to other matters, according to the court records.
There was conflicting testimony about whether Lalli was checked at 3:15 p.m., but according to the jail log, at 3:30 p.m., he was checked and found to be hanging by bed sheets strung from a privacy partition in the cell.
An email message was sent last week to Catherine Connors, Penn’s attorney, for comment on the case. No response was received.