By Nicki Gorny
Ocala Star-Banner
OCALA, Fla. — A former jail inmate and the two sheriff’s corrections officers he accused of using excessive force reached a settlement just days before the case would have gone to trial in federal court.
The settlement calls for the officials, Andrew English and Derrick Womack, to pay $15,000 to Joseph Sweeney, according to Sweeney. Both sides will cover their own attorney’s fees and costs.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Office, in a prepared statement, cast the settlement as a business decision: “Although we strongly believe our Corrections Officers Corporal Derrick Womack and Corporal Andrew English acted properly, an opportunity was presented to settle this case for less than it would have cost to go to a trial and that opportunity was taken.”
Although he had been hoping for a higher sum, Sweeney, for his part, said he thought the settlement was reasonable.
Sweeney, 26, of Ocala, filed two civil rights complaints from the Marion County Jail in 2013. He was an inmate there between February 2013 and April 2015, according to jail records, awaiting resolution of two battery charges and one trespassing charge.
In his first complaint, filed in May, he described a March incident in which he said English punched him, pepper-sprayed him, and smashed his face into the ground with enough force to fracture his teeth. This came during a search for contraband, when inmates were asked to shake out their clothes.
Sweeney wrote in his complaint that he had “calmly explained” to another officer moments before his interaction with English that the shirt deputies asked him to remove was his only clean shirt, and that he had received it just that day.
“...but (English) wasn’t trying to hear anything I had to say,” Sweeney wrote, continuing to describe English pushing him against a wall, pepper-spraying him and throwing him to the ground when he spit out the pepper spray.
English, in his response, maintained that he followed proper protocol.
In his second complaint, filed in September, Sweeney named four more defendants in relation to an August incident. He described a backup in the jail plumbing that caused “a flood of sewage water and a disgusting strong odor of urine and feces” within feet of his bunk. He wrote that the smell made him sick to his stomach, and that the unsanitary conditions made him concerned for his health.
When he complained to two deputies, Womack and Shaquanta Scott, about the conditions, he said they refused to let him move -- and when they learned another deputy had later permitted this, he said they told him to move back to his original bunk.
Sweeney refused, according to his complaint, and instead gathered his things for a move to another pod, where he expected to go for refusing an order from jail staff. Womack relented after a conversation and agreed to let Sweeney move his bunk, according to the complaint. Then, about 10 minutes later, Sweeney said Womack returned to say he’d changed his mind.
“He became enraged when I simply reminded him to that he just given me permission to more from the hazard area 10 minutes prior,” Sweeney said, continuing to say that Womack pepper-sprayed him and slammed his head into the ground.
“I obviously had no reason to refuse or resist when I originally packed my stuff and tried to go to A-pod willingly,” he wrote. “Officer Womack had absolutely no reason to abuse his authority and use excessive force against me.“
Sweeney also named Sheriff Chris Blair and Capt. Adrian Hernandez in this complaint, on the premise that Blair had failed to adequately train, supervise and control his employees and that Hernandez had failed to adequately discipline Womack.
A judge last year tossed the cases against Blair, Hernandez and Scott. The judge also merged the two complaints in September 2014, meaning that the settlement relates only to Sweeney’s claims of excessive force on the part of English and Womack.
He had originally asked for $875,000 in damages in his first complaint, and $70,000 in his second.
Sweeney has been living and working in Ocala since finishing his prison sentence in October. He represented himself for much of the proceedings, and said he spent much of his time in jail at the law library.
While plaintiffs in civil cases are not entitled to attorneys as they are in criminal cases, a judge appointed Orlando-based attorney Roger Weeden to this case in December. Christine Marlewski, of Tampa, joined shortly after. Weeden commended Sweeney for his handling of the case.
“I cannot tell you what a great job Joseph did preparing for trial,” he said.
Sweeney said he is now taking classes to be a paralegal.
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