CLEVELAND — Editor's note: The video in the player above is from a story published in February 2019.
The trial for former Cuyahoga County Jail director Ken Mills began Wednesday with opening statements. It comes as Mills faces charges of tampering with records, falsification and dereliction of duty.
As 3News reported last summer, the indictment followed a 2018 report by the U.S. Marshals’ office, which found inmates were being treated inhumanely, including not being given proper medical care. Peter Elliot, U.S. Marshal for the Northern District of Ohio, called the matter a “serious problem” and that said the system appeared “broken.”
Mills resigned in 2018 after the allegations came to light.
We streamed opening statements in the case on Wednesday, which you can watch in the player below:
An indictment from October 2019 alleges Mills made the jail “unsafe” by failing to “observe any lawful and reasonable regulation for the management of the detention facility.” More specifically, the jury claims he "negligently fail[ed] to provide persons confined in the detention facility with adequate food, clothing, bedding, shelter, and medical attention."
Former Jail Nursing Supervisor, Gary Brack, previously described it this way: "We have paraplegics, quadriplegics in the jail. I have no staff to turn these inmates over every couple of hours to prevent bed sores."
In a hearing over the problems in late 2018, District 2 County Councilman Dale Miller said, "Right now the appearance is that people are dying left and right and nobody cares."
PREVIOUS COVERAGE OF THE CASE: