After two Broward jail deaths, one deemed ‘suspect,’ public defenders call out sheriff
The photo sent by the Broward Public Defender’s Office to Sheriff Gregory Tony shows Frank Jordan unresponsive with bloody drool stains on his green striped uniform after being transported from the county jail to the courthouse in September.
Months earlier, in April, Jordan had been declared incompetent to proceed to trial, then he sustained a stroke in July, while in Broward Sheriff’s Office custody, according to a scathing letter sent to the sheriff on Wednesday by the county’s top two defense attorneys.
There were likely several mini-strokes after that, which went untreated, public defenders said, but the lawyers didn’t know because Jordan wasn’t provided the necessary care and monitoring for his post-stroke condition.
“The unnerving sight of this gentleman would give any casual observer pause, yet your trained personnel were immune and lacking of basic humanity by overlooking his condition,” Public Defender Howard Finkelstein and Executive Chief Assistant Public Defender Gordon H. Weekes Jr. wrote in the letter.
After public defenders discovered his condition in court, Jordan was returned to the jail rather than being sent to the hospital, the attorneys said, until the court intervened and released him from BSO custody.
Melinda Blostein, the supervising assistant public defender in mental health court, said she was shocked when Jordan came into court, unable to even lift his head.
She arranged to have him transferred to a hospital, where he was treated for the stroke and aided by multiple machines, which she said he doesn’t have access to in the jail.
There, she said, he was just put into a diaper.
“He couldn’t have asked for help or anything because he didn’t have that ability,” Blostein said.
Blostein said Jordan is now in a nursing home and receiving adequate care.
The letter from the public defender included a long list of grievances, detailing episodes of alleged medical neglect, physical abuse and obstruction by Broward jail officials. It was prompted by two jail deaths earlier this month — Richard Cramer, who died by suicide on Dec. 8 after being in the jail for less than three weeks, and Ryan Bergin, who died the next day “while supposedly in active detox, although those circumstances are suspect,” according to the public defender’s office.
A spokesperson for the Broward Sheriff’s Office said the agency received the letter and its internal affairs division was already investigating the two recent jail deaths.
“The Public Defender’s Office has sent similar letters in the past, in which most of the allegations were determined to be unfounded,” the spokesperson said. “We will once again thoroughly review these allegations and address them accordingly.”
The sheriff’s office did not immediately provide examples of allegations that were determined to be unfounded.
In their letter to Sheriff Tony, the top two public defenders said “the frequency of deaths [in Broward jails] calls into question the ability of the jail to appropriately assess and intervene when an inmate is in acute or mental health crisis.”
As part of ongoing court monitoring, the American Civil Liberties Union was at Broward jails last week combing through medical records and talking to inmates, according to Greg Lauer, a lawyer who has sued jail staff multiple times for alleged mistreatment of inmates. Though the jail changed healthcare providers in 2018, Lauer said little has changed.
“It’s all the same staff, I’ve sued all these people multiple times,” Lauer said. “I’ve read hundreds of thousands of pages of medical records that just make my toes curl, it’s awful. Things you just think wouldn’t happen in America.”
Among the anecdotes public defenders listed in the letter: a 17-year-old who died by suicide in September even after he was admitted into the jail on suicide watch, an 18-year-old who was beaten by jail officials after asking to go back to his cell to retrieve legal paperwork, and a detainee with mental illness who was kept in jail despite her not taking medication and public defenders’ pleas for intervention, among other examples.
This is the third letter this year that the public defender’s office has sent about medical neglect in the jail.
Blostein said her office’s communication with the jail is crumbling. When she goes to visit a client, she is often told they’re inappropriate for visitation without an explanation.
She said years ago a woman in the jail would call the public defender to talk about which inmates may be a fit for compassionate release. It doesn’t happen much anymore, she said.
“I think their staff is used to or OK with institutionalized people and not treating them like a patient,” she said.
This story was originally published December 18, 2019 at 7:22 PM.
