A St. Louis attorney has filed his second lawsuit on behalf of people who allege they were held at the Medium Security Institution well after criminal charges were dropped against them.
Attorney Elad Gross said public defenders are putting him in touch with even more people who have waited in the city jail, also known as the Workhouse, without being charged of a crime.
“I would not be surprised if there are a lot more people whose constitutional rights are being violated by the city and have been for many years,” Gross said.
Gross filed his first wrongful incarceration lawsuit in June on behalf of then-18-year-old Destiny Payne, who alleged she spent 15 days in the Workhouse after charges were dropped. Her trial is set for January 2018.
While preparing for Payne’s trial, Gross came across the case of Charles Lewis, a 62-year-old African-American man who was held in jail more than a week after his charges were dropped. Lewis is also suing for unsanitary jail conditions.
Lewis spent about a year, from May 2016 to May 2017, in the Workhouse on two charges of making terroristic threats against a former employer. His bail was set at $10,000. Lewis denied the charges and demanded a trial, which he received in March 2017. Lewis was acquitted of one charge at trial, and had a hung jury for the second charge. The second charge was eventually dismissed a couple months later.
Because of the awful living conditions, Gross said, “He felt pressured to just admit guilt, but he knew he wasn’t guilty.”
After his remaining charge was dismissed, he was not released from jail, Gross said. He remained there for at least eight days, perhaps more, without charges pending against him, he said.
He might have stayed in there longer if his public defender hadn’t noticed that his name was still on the jail roster days after the charges were dropped.
“This is something that is ongoing, and several of the public defenders have had this experience happen multiple times,” Gross said. “For a lot of folks, all they know is someone comes to your cell and says, ‘You’re done.’ They don’t know that for weeks that there were no charges.”
The living conditions made Lewis’ year in jail unbearable, Gross said.
According to the lawsuit, “the ceiling was collapsing due to obvious sewage water leaks from the toilets on the floor above. The ceiling collapse occurred multiple times.”
Lewis was also subjected to “disease and unhygienic outbreaks, including scabies and lice outbreaks.” There was also mold, rat and bug infestations and asbestos, the lawsuit states.
Payne’s case was also amended to include similar allegations of poor conditions to her lawsuit. As Gross expected, a judge ruled to dismiss several defendants from Payne’s case, including Mayor Lyda Krewson and Circuit Clerk Thomas Kloeppinger. However, the judge rejected the city’s assertion of absolute immunity for the Circuit Attorney’s Office and ruled that Payne has stated a claim against the remaining defendants.
That felt like a step forward, Gross said, because these lawsuits often don’t even get that far.
The defendants in Lewis’ case include Sheriff Vernon Betts, then-public safety director Charlene Deeken, Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner, Corrections Commissioner Dale Glass and several unnamed employees.
The St. Louis American reached out to the defendants, and they have not yet responded.
Attorney files second lawsuit on behalf of people allegedly held at Workhouse without being charged