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Advanced Correctional Healthcare Ends Two Suits Over Deaths at Ohio Jail
Private jail medical providers usually win contracts with promises to save a county money. But after two federal lawsuits filed in federal court for the Northern District of Ohio in 2023 against Ohio’s Richland County and its privately contracted jail medical provider, Advanced Correctional Healthcare (ACH), the jail dropped the firm. ACH has resolved both suits in 2024; though as a private entity settling with a a private citizen, it has avoided disclosing whether an agreement was even struck, much less for how much.
In one of the suits, ACH was accused of ignoring complaints from detainee Zachary Marshall, 35, as well as signs of sepsis that killed him in December 2021. His sister, Lacee Bowersox, who is administrator of his Estate, agreed to dismiss her claims against ACH Nurse Christopher Smith in May 2024; however, no settlement agreement was announced or docketed with the Court. Plaintiff is represented by Columbus attorney Abigail F. Chin of Cooper Elliott. See: Bowersox v. Adv. Corr. Healthcare, Inc., USDC (N.D. Ohio), Case No. 1:23-cv-02287.
The other suit was filed by the father of detainee Maggie Copeland, 29, who was found unresponsive in her jail cell in May 2022. She was pronounced dead a short time later at a hospital. An autopsy blamed drug abuse. But Jon Copeland still didn’t understand why his daughter was found naked with her head shaved. ACH Defendants were dismissed from the suit on September 11, 2024, though again no settlement was announced or docketed. Copeland is represented in his suit by Marion attorney Robert E. Wilson, of Wilson, Coulton & Kochheiser. See: Copeland v. Richland Cty., USDC (N.D. Ohio), Case No. 1:23-cv-01517.
Neither suit was enough, apparently, to keep nearby Coshocton County from signing up ACH to provide healthcare at its jail in August 2023. Sheriff James Crawford said that his office spent $160,000 on medical care for detainees in 2023. His new $125,000 contract with ACH represented a 20% savings—and it includes dental and other specialists, with a nurse seeing detainees eight hours a day, five days a week.
Back in Richland County, neither suit has yet cost taxpayers a settlement, though legal fees are likely significant. As PLN reported, the County earlier paid $4 million in December 2021 to the survivors of detainee Alexander Rios, 28, who was fatally beaten by five jail guards in September 2019; only one guard was tried, and then retried after a mistrial before he was acquitted in April 2024. [See: PLN, Oct. 2022, p.60; and June 2024, p.24.]
Additional source: Mansfield News Journal
