By Richard Chumney
New Haven Register, Conn.
HARTFORD, Conn. — A federal jury has awarded a Meriden man serving a life sentence for murder more than $130,000 after finding Connecticut prison officials failed to provide him adequate food and recreation time.
The jury found that former state Corrections Commissioner Angel Quiros and other top officials violated Joe Baltas’s Eight Amendment rights when he was held at the now-closed Northern Correctional Institution, court records show.
Baltas, who was convicted in 2010 of fatally stabbing his ex-girlfriend’s father in Meriden, alleged in a lawsuit that he was kept in his cell for 23 hours a day and likened his experience to solitary confinement.
Specifically, Baltas claimed state prison officials broke the law by failing to provide him “nutritionally adequate” food and by depriving him of “stimuli” by refusing to set aside recreation time outside his cell.
Baltas was held at the former maximum security prison in Somers between 2016 and 2017. The “supermax” facility was shuttered in 2021 due to what Gov. Ned Lamont described at the time as a significant drop in the inmate population.
The jury agreed with Baltas’ argument, finding the actions of prison officials risked seriously harming the inmate. They awarded Baltas a total of $130,030 in a verdict handed down Friday, according to the court records.
Attorney Morgan Rueckert, who represented Baltas, said he and fellow lawyers Chelsea McCallum, Kristie Beahm and Megan Medlicott were grateful for the jury’s decision.
“The team exemplifies the legal profession’s commitment to the rule of law and pro bono service,” Rueckert said.
A spokesperson for Attorney General William Tong and Interim Correction Department Commissioner Sharonda Carlos did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Baltas has been in state custody since he was arrested in the Oct. 25, 2006 killing of Michael Laverty, his ex-girlfriend’s father.
The Meriden man was later convicted of murder in Laverty’s death and also found guilty on two counts of first-degree assault and first-degree burglary for stabbing Laverty’s wife, Linda, and their son, Chris Laverty.
Additionally, Baltas was convicted of second-degree kidnapping for forcing his ex-girlfriend to leave the apartment after the stabbings.
Baltas remains incarcerated and is now awaiting trial in a series of separate cases for attacking prison staffers, including an attempted murder charge for stabbing two correction officers at the Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown in 2023.
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