Things seemed to be looking up last week for 59-year-old Laddie Roebuck, a diabetic inmate in the St. Louis City Justice Center who lost his toe to gangrene due to what he claims was medical neglect in the jail.
A circuit court judge held an emergency bond reduction hearing for Roebuck on December 13 to discuss lowering his $40,000 cash-only bond amount. Roebuck, who suffers from chronic mental issues as well as a substance abuse problem, is charged with robbery without use of a weapon.
He currently cannot walk because he had his toe amputated in late November, and he has had excessively high blood-sugar levels around 400 mg/dl for several weeks now, his lawyers said. Blood glucose is commonly considered too high if it is 180 mg/dl or higher.
His lawyers argued that if Roebuck didn’t get out of jail and receive adequate medical care soon, he could lose more toes to the infection in his diabetic foot ulcers, but Judge Rex Burlison ruled that Roebuck was a threat to society. Burlison refused to explore alternatives, such as an ankle bracelet or being placed at the nonprofit Places for People that provides services for people facing mental illness and addiction.
“This is an abuse of discretion,” said Dedra Moore, Roebuck’s defense attorney. “This $40,000 cash-only bond is extremely excessive. I’ve seen some cases where weapons were actually used and got a $10,000 cash-only bond.’”
A spokeswoman for the Circuit Attorney’s Office said that the victim, an 82-year-old white woman, appeared in court at both of the Roebuck’s bond reduction hearings to express her concerns.
“Neither our office, the victim or the courts opposed appropriate actions to help the defendant get the medical treatment he needs,” the prosecutor’s spokeswoman said. “We have a responsibility to protect the safety of this victim and the community. Mr. Roebuck has an extensive criminal history.”
He has been held at the Justice Center since February. According to the probable cause statement in his case, Roebuck allegedly approached the victim while she was loading groceries into her car at the Schnucks at 4171 Lindell Blvd. Roebuck allegedly asked for money and she gave him some. But then he allegedly tried to rob her, punching her and threatening to kill her when she started to scream, according to the statement.
Moore argued that holding a practically homeless drug addict in jail pretrial for almost a year before his first criminal hearing – which is in February 2019 – is not going to make the community safer, but getting him treatment will.
“It’s not right to commit crimes, it’s not right to hurt someone else, and it’s not right to take things that don’t belong to you,” Moore said. “But when you talk to these people and you realize they are homeless or drug addicts, they are living off an entirely different set of norms.”
Roebuck also got more bad news last week.
He is currently suing the City of St. Louis, Corrections Commissioner Dale Glass and Corizon Health – the agency that the city pays more than $8 million a year to provide medical services in the city’s two jails. In his lawsuit, he claims that the poor medical attention at the jail is causing him to lose his limbs.
On November 27, Roebuck asked the federal court to grant a temporary restraining order, ensuring that the jail health staff would provide the care that was outlined by a St. Louis University Hospital physician in November. However, on December 14, U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. ruled against stepping in.
“So he sits there while the lawsuit continues to pend,” said Nicole Nelson, executive director of Equity Legal Services, who is representing him in his federal lawsuit. “And we just hope that he doesn’t lose any more body parts. I talked to one of our experts last night who told me she is very fearful because once they start amputating things, they don’t tend to stop. We just wonder what it takes for the court and the medical providers at the jail to get him adequate medical care.”
Nelson said that Roebuck’s father died in his sleep from a diabetic coma, and “he has very legitimate, well-grounded fears from the inadequate medical care they give him.”Â
