FILE – An undated photo taken by Kimberly Perry shows Terrill Thomas (left) and her son Terrill Barnes. The company that provided medical services at a Wisconsin jail was found guilty Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022, in Thomas’s 2016 death from dehydration. (Kimberly Perry via HPD, File)
FILE – An undated photo taken by Kimberly Perry shows Terrill Thomas (left) and her son Terrill Barnes. The company that provided medical services at a Wisconsin jail was found guilty Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022, in Thomas’s 2016 death from dehydration. (Kimberly Perry via HPD, File)
MILWAUKEE, Wis. (HPD) — A company that provided medical services at a Wisconsin jail has been found guilty in the 2016 dehydration death of an inmate.
Miami-based Armor Correctional Health Services Inc. was charged in 2018 with one felony count of abusing correctional facility inmates and seven misdemeanors of falsifying health records in the death of 38-year-old Terrill Thomas.
Thomas was arrested in April 2016 after running into the Potawatomi casino in Milwaukee, ordering everyone to get out, then shooting twice with a pistol. Nobody was hurt. His family said that Thomas probably experienced a psychotic episode.
He was placed in isolation at the Milwaukee County Jail. The guards cut off his access to the water, claiming that they saw him putting his shirt and mattress pieces into the toilet to flood his cell.
Prosecutors said Armor employees claimed to have checked on Thomas while he was in solitary confinement, but surveillance video showed them walking past his cell “without stopping or ever appearing in his cell.” The charges also allege that an Armor employee at one point “made up the blood pressure and pulse readings” for Thomas.
Thomas died after a week in isolation.
A Milwaukee County Circuit Court jury returned the verdict against the company Tuesday night, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
Armor’s attorney, Patrick J. Knight, said the company would appeal the verdict and several pretrial rulings.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for November 16. The company faces fines of up to $190,000.