by Chuck Sharman

The West Virginia Circuit Court for Kanawha County gave its approval on September 1, 2026, to a $700,000 settlement reached five days earlier between the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR) and Lisa Huffman, personnel representative of the Estate of Nathan James Kennedy, a pretrial detainee killed at the North Central Regional Jail in 2023.

Kennedy, 48, died less than three hours after he was booked into the lockup on September 8, 2023, following an altercation with a housemate that led to his arrest. A later investigation of surveillance video by State Police (WVSP) clocked Kennedy’s arrival at 3:44 p.m. He was seen by a nurse employed by the jail’s privately contracted medical provider, Wexford Health Sources, to whom Kennedy reported he suffered from high pressure. He also admitted taking methamphetamines. He was then placed briefly in a metal cage before he was led through a body scanner at 4:01 p.m. Less than 20 minutes after booking, guards put him in another metal cage, and things quickly went south from there.

There was no audio on the surveillance tape, but a Wexford nurse charted that Kennedy began banging his head on the cage. The WVSP noted that the nurse “appear[ed] annoyed” and summoned four guards into the room. After they “push[ed] on the cage” and left, “the cage is seen shaking from [Kennedy’s] actions,” the report continued. He had been inside just about a half-hour when, at 4:38 p.m., a guard returned and sprayed oleoresin capsicum (OC)—pepper spray—into the cage. He then handcuffed Kennedy, who was let out of the cage while staffers performed a “limited” decontamination procedure, the complaint continued. Put back inside by 4:42 p.m., Kennedy remained alone in the cage until 5:26 p.m., when a guard returned and removed the handcuffs to give him water and a towel to wash off some of the OC spray still clinging to his skin. He wasn’t released from the cage, though, until guards took him to the bathroom around 6:18 p.m.

There was no camera inside the bathroom, but one in the hall outside captured glimpses as the door opened of Kennedy struggling inside with two guards, identified as Cpls. Reed and Wells. When one got bitten on the arm, an unidentified third guard began recording the encounter with his cellphone video camera. While he later filed a report to the contrary—only retracting it when confronted with his cellphone video—what happened inside the bathroom was a planned off-camera beat-down, the complaint alleged. The three guards put the detainee in a spit mask and shocked him with a Taser set to “drive stun,” applying current as long as it was held on Kennedy. They then placed him in a restraint chair, where he became unresponsive. Emergency responders were summoned, and they pronounced him dead.

Suit Filed, Partial Settlement Reached

With the aid of attorneys from Calwell Luce diTrapano PLLC and Forbes Law Offices in Charleston, along with co-counsel from attorneys with John & Werner Law Offices, PLLC in Wheeling, Huffman filed suit in December 2025. Proceeding under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, she accused the DRC, Wexford and their staffers of using excessive force on Kennedy and displaying deliberate indifference to his resulting serious medical need, in violation of his civil rights. The complaint also lodged related state-law claims.

The complaint drew heavily on the WVSP report, which said that the DRC had been on notice that its employees’ actions were dangerous and unconstitutional at least since the death under very similar circumstances of another pretrial detainee at the jail, Zachary Bailey, in July 2019. Yet the DRC had never promulgated policies or mandated training to prevent a recurrence, the report continued. The report also noted that the medical examiner declared Kennedy’s death a homicide caused by the restraint procedures used on him; however, a grand jury declined to indict any of the personnel involved in his murder. For its part, however, Wexford had or should have had records from Kennedy’s earlier incarceration at the jail in March 2021 recording his hypertension and meth use, both of which left him especially vulnerable to risk of death from the procedures used.

Less than nine months after the complaint was filed, Huffman reached a partial settlement with Defendant DRC officials. Under its terms, they agreed to pay her attorneys $30,153.51 in costs and $280,000 in fees, representing 40% of the total, under their previously executed agreement. Huffman received $25,000 as Estate administrator. Another $3,000 went to Kennedy’s mother, Joyce Kennedy, to reimburse his funeral expenses; she and his brother, Miciah Kennedy, waived any other settlement payment. That left the balance to be split between Kennedy’s three adult children, Isaac Kennedy, McCaden Cooper and Ariana Kennedy, each of whom received $120,615.50. Claims against Wexford remain pending, and PLN will update developments in the case as they unfold. See: Huffman v. W.V. Dep’t of Corr. and Rehab., W.V. Cir. (Kanawha Cty.), Case No. CC-20-2025-C-242.

“During his time up there, which was only about three hours, he got pepper sprayed, he got tased over 15 times, he got beaten with fists,” attorney L. Dante’ diTrapano told WCHS in Charleston, noting that it was only after the detainee’s blood pressure dropped to 42/36 that anyone attempted to help him, calling in an ambulance crew who arrived too late to save him.

“This has no place in society,” agreed co-counsel Jesse Forbes. “It has no place in civilization. This something out of some sort of Medieval torture establishment. This should not occur in West Virginia.”  

Additional source: WCHS