CLEVELAND — Officers at the Cuyahoga County Jail are accused of torturing and abusing an inmate and retaliating with more abuse after he reported the attacks.
Corrionne Lawrence, 25, alleged officers threatened to murder him and “make it look like suicide,” among other abuses throughout the fall of 2018, in a lawsuit against the county and six corrections officers filed in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas on Friday.
“The county should look very hard at the string of abuses that have taken place at the jail,” Lawrence’s lead attorney Ashlie Case Sletvold told WKYC.
“We think this is just the tip of the iceberg and there is a big problem here that needs to be remedied.”
The officers named in the lawsuit include Christopher Little, Brandon Smith, Barry Hickerson, and Beverly Witt. Two other officers included in the lawsuit have not been named.
WKYC could not immediately reach the officers named for comment. A representative speaking on behalf of Cuyahoga County told WKYC that the government does not comment on pending litigation.
The complaint obtained by WKYC alleges that officers threatened to hang Lawrence to make it look like he took his own life, and allowing another inmate who was being held for the murder of Lawrence’s cousin to attack him.
This was after they allegedly punished Lawrence by locking him up in a restraint chair for hours because he spoke Spanish while he was being booked.
Lawrence also reported that he was handcuffed and beaten in an elevator, where security cameras were not recording, in a grievance filed with the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Internal Affairs department.
Afterwards, Lawrence was denied medical treatment for injuries from the beating, the lawsuit said. That grievance has yet to be addressed, Sletvold told WKYC.
After Lawrence reported all of these abuses to the United States Marshals Service, he was threatened, served rotten food and denied basic hygiene privileges in retaliation, according to the complaint.
“Corrections officers should not be doling out beat-downs or threatening people for reporting abuse,” Sletvold said. “It is time for the county to reckon with the scope of the harm its practices have caused.”
Lawrence’s accusations against the county jail are part of a growing number of complaints of inappropriate, abusive behavior.
On Friday, Cleveland.com reported that Cuyahoga County corrections officer Jeremiah resigned on Aug. 1 after he was confronted with allegations of having phone sex with at least two inmates on the recorded jailhouse line.
Internal Affairs reports obtained by Cleveland.com stated that Crist “had at least seven sexually explicit conversations with one woman and 97 with another.” Crist, who had worked in the county jail for 14 years, denied the allegations.
‘This bespeaks the rampant corruption and abuses that are taking place in this facility,” Sletvold of the Chandra Law Firm told WKYC.
“When any institution has this many problems, we need to go back to square one and develop a new culture that doesn’t allow for the lawlessness of all kinds that takes place in the county jail.”
The law firm representing Lawrence has filed two other lawsuit against Cuyahoga County this year.
In one complaint, Chantelle Glass said she suffered torture and medical indifference by corrections officers.
In another lawsuit Nurse Gary Brack has alleged he was retaliated against for blowing the whistle on jail conditions to County Council.
Lawrence's lawsuit claims the officers' actions were in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
The claims include civil assault and battery, and civil liability for criminal acts including felonious assault, unlawful restraint, intimidation, menacing, interfering with civil rights, and dereliction of duty.
Lawrence is seeking unspecified damages for financial loss, as well as mental, emotional and physical pain and suffering.
