Three jail staffers charged in inmate's dehydration death

MILWAUKEE  – Prosecutors have charged three Milwaukee County jail staffers for their role in the dehydration death of an inmate who spent a week without water, reports CBS affiliate WDJT. All three face felony charges.

The charges announced Monday by the Milwaukee District Attorney’s Office come almost a year after jurors recommended jail staff should be liable after prosecutors presented them with evidence. An inquest jury found last May found probable cause against seven staffers, the station reports.

The investigation revealed 38-year-old Terrill Thomas had water to his cell shut off as punishment for flooding it in April 2016. 

Supervisor Kashka Meadors and jail deputy James Lee Ramsey-Guy are both charged with neglect of a resident of a penal facility, a felony that punishable by up to 3 ½ years in prison. Prosecutors say Meadors ordered Ramsey-Guy to shut off the water.

Jail Cmdr. Nancy Lee Evans is charged with misconduct and obstructing an office. Prosecutors say she failed to preserve surveillance video showing the water turned off. If convicted of both charges, Evans could face more than four years in prison.

Police detectives asked Evans in a questionnaire during their investigation whether there was any documentation showing whether the water was turned off the whole time or intermittently. The document Evans signed off on answered that “there is no documentation indicating this.” However, prosecutors say Evans was aware of the tape and that it showed the water to Thomas’ cell being turned off and never turned back on again. 

Thomas’ family has said he was having a mental breakdown when police arrested him April 14, 2016, for shooting a man in front of his parents’ house and later firing a gun inside a casino.

Thomas’ case wasn’t the only time an inmate was punished by being deprived of water. Prosecutors presented jurors with jail logs documenting two cases in which disobeying inmates had water to their cells turned off – both within a month of Thomas dying. One of the cases happened a week after Thomas’ death. 

At the time of Thomas’ death, the jail was overseen by conservative firebrand Sheriff David Clarke, who resigned in August to join a political action committee in support of President Donald Trump. Clarke was not the target of the inquest because he wasn’t directly involved in Thomas’ death. 

Thomas is one of seven prisoners to have died in the jail since mid-2016, prompting Milwaukee County Acting Sheriff Richard Schmidt to assign an overseer to monitor inmate health, according to CBS affiliate WISC.  

The jail’s troubled history also includes a 2006 contempt of court charge for failing to fix “appalling” conditions in accordance with an agreement between the county, the ACLU of Wisconsin, and the Wisconsin Legal Aid Society.