Under a limited writ of mandamus issued by the Supreme Court of Ohio on October 17, 2024, the Columbiana County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) must obtain records from the private contractor operating the county jail and disclose them pursuant to a public records request. Sheriff Brian McLaughlin had argued that the records were in the custody of Correctional Solutions Group (CSG), which as a private firm is not subject to such a request. But the high Court called foul on that feint and ordered him to get the records and disclose them to the requester, now-state prisoner Terry Brown, or else certify within 21 days that no responsive records exist.

In August 2023, Brown submitted two public records requests to the CCSO, in care of Sheriff McLaughlin. His first request listed 10 items seeking “[e]mployees’ names and positions held while working at the Columbiana County Jail during the time period of January 1, 2017, through July 1, 2018.” Brown’s second request listed another 15 items pertaining to current “[p]olicy information on Inmate Intake/Booking and Retention of records,” to include the “booking of inmates showing signs of intoxication, impairment, injury, or psychological problems.” In both requests, Brown also sought “related …

Before Pres. Donald J. Trump (R) took office, his “border czar” Tom Homan worked as a consultant for GEO Group, Inc., one of the largest operators of immigrant detention facilities in the country. 

The revelation, as the Washington Post reported, raises questions about the influence that private sector companies could wield as the administration rolls out its crackdown on immigration. According to the report, Homan received more than $5,000—although his pay could have been much higher—for work conducted in connection with GEO Care, a division of the company that monitors releases and offers rehabilitation services for prisoners. 

On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to deport up to 20 million people from the country—nearly double the estimated population of 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Since his inauguration, Trump has expressed dissatisfaction with the rate of arrests and deportations conducted by federal immigration authorities. 

In an effort to ramp up deportations, the administration set an aggressive new goal in May 2025 of 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests per day. To keep up that pace of detentions, federal authorities have turned to already overcrowded federal prisons and local jails to imprison people …

On January 14, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a former Illinois prisoner’s deliberate indifference claim against a healthcare provider contracted by the state Department of Corrections (DOC) could proceed to trial, though dismissal of an identical claim against four other staffers was upheld. The lower court had determined that prisoner Clarence Lewis impermissibly split his claims against Wexford Health Sources’ Dr. Dina Paul between his suit and another filed with other plaintiffs also challenging treatment for their Hepatitis-C. But the appellate Court said that Dr. Paul waited too long to raise the objection, thereby waiving the defense. The Court further held that failure to recruit counsel for Lewis’ claims against the other Wexford staffers was not shown to be error.

Lewis sued the five providers, alleging that they were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs while he was imprisoned at Hill Correctional Center from 2013 to 2018. Lewis accused Dr. Kul B. Sood, Nurse Lara Vollmer and Dr. Catalino Bautista of misdiagnosing him and mistreating him for diabetes and COPD when what he really suffered was a bowel disorder. Lewis further alleged that Bautista delayed the colonoscopy procedure which discovered …

In a case with enormous implications for Oklahoma jail detainees, the state Supreme Court ruled on March 11, 2025, that a jail’s subcontracted medical providers are “employees” for the purposes of the Oklahoma Governmental Tort Claims Act (GTCA), O.S.Supp.2014, §152(7)(b)(7), and are therefore immune from liability.

That ruling ended an attempt by the Estate of Brenda Jean Sanders to hold officials liable for her death at the Creek County Jail in November 2016. The suit that Sanders’ Estate filed was initially dismissed by a state trial court which found that the jail’s contracted medical provider, Turn Key Health Clinics, LLC, was immune under GTCA. The state Court of Civil Appeals, Division II, reversed that decision, and Defendants appealed. The state Supreme Court then vacated the appellate ruling.

First, the Court found that the trial court’s dismissal was not a final appealable order because the Estate could have amended its complaint, though it did not do so. That made the appeal untimely. The governing state statute, 12 O.S. §2012(G), provides an exception for untimely appeals only “in cases of excusable neglect,” the Supreme Court noted, “but no exception expressly exists in §2012(G) for an interlocutory order ripening into …

When government agencies—including corrections departments—enter contracts with private companies, they typically go through a competitive bidding process, beginning with a Request for Proposals (RFP). This ensures that taxpayers have access to information used to award government contracts, providing a level of fiscal responsibility. However, the Mississippi Department of Corrections (DOC), under the leadership of Burl Cain, has entered into four no-bid emergency contracts since 2020 worth nearly $300 million—all with the same healthcare contractor, VitalCore Health Strategies.

In July 2020, after the DOC’s former contractor, Centurion Health, opted to terminate its contract to provide healthcare services to the state’s prison population, Cain declared an emergency under the Public Procurement Review Board’s rules and regulations. That then allowed him to sign a no-bid, $56 million contract with VitalCore on August 12, 2020.

By the time that contract expired in October 2021, it might be assumed that the emergency had ended and the competitive bidding process would resume. It didn’t. Another one-year emergency contract was issued to VitalCore, again bypassing the competitive bidding process. That contract was valued at $66 million, based on its per diem rate of $8.90 for each of the DOC’s 20,300 prisoners.

When that …

uring a hearing on April 9, 2025, Florida lawmakers pieced together an elaborate money trail from the former owner of prison and jail medical giant Centurion Health, which pumped $10 million into an ultimately successful effort by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to tank a 2024 ballot initiative legalizing marijuana use and possession.

Centene Corp. was Centurion’s owner from 2018 to 2023, overlapping the period from 2016 to 2021 when it was accused of overbilling Florida for providing managed care services under the state Medicaid program. Centene also owned Centurion Health which had a contract worth $1.639 billion to provide health care to Florida state prisoners. To settle the overbilling charges, Centene agreed in September 2024 to a $67,048,611 payment—$10 million of which Shevaun Harris, Secretary of the state Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), directed the company to pay directly to Hope Florida Foundation, a nonprofit run by DeSantis’ wife, Casey DeSantis.

The foundation’s stated mission is to help low-income Floridians meet medical expenses. But Hope Florida then wrote two $5 million checks the following month to political action committees allied with the Governor’s effort to beat …

In October 2024, Wellpath—a private for-profit contractor that provides medical care in prisons and jails—was ordered to pay a $1.5 million settlement it entered in a lawsuit alleging that one of the company’s nurses performed “unnecessary and inappropriate” vaginal exams on detainees at South Carolina’s Berkeley County Detention Center between June 2017 and 2018.

The suit, filed in state court on behalf of eight former detainees, raised claims of negligence and medical malpractice. It also noted that the nurse, Alexander Lluvera, had remained employed despite jail officials having knowledge of his alleged sexual misconduct.

In agreeing to settle in July 2024, Wellpath said that it would remit the $1.5 million payment in two installments; however, it missed making the first $750,000 payment on October 1, 2024, leading Circuit Court Judge Jennifer McCoy to issue a settlement enforcement order on October 29, 2024, giving the firm 15 days to pay the entire amount. See: Clark v. Berkeley Cty. Sheriff’s Off., S.C. 9th Jud. Cir. (Berkeley Cty.), Case No. 2019-CP-08-01391

As PLN reported, Wellpath declared bankruptcy in December 2024 and announced a settlement had been reached with its creditors in April 2025. [See: PLN, May 2025, …

In a lawsuit filed by a former Florida prisoner who was released to die from prostate cancer that private prison healthcare giant Centurion allegedly ignored, officials with the company agreed to an undisclosed settlement and claims were dismissed on March 27, 2025. That left claims by Elmer Williams against other defendants from the state Department of Corrections (DOC).

Williams, 56, was 32 when sentenced to DOC custody for a nonviolent burglary conviction. He was treated for prostate cancer, which was in remission, when tests alerted medical staff to a possible recurrence in September 2021. They wrote an “urgent” referral for consultation with a urologist. But that didn’t happen. By the time of his transfer to Suwannee Correctional Institution in November 2021, Williams was having so much trouble walking that he fell while trying to get out of his bunk, injuring his hip, neck and back.

But guard Sgt. Savonia Richardson-Graham allegedly berated him, saying: “I’m not calling a stretcher for you, you can forget that!” She had two other prisoners wheel him in someone else’s chair to Centurion Nurse Jason Howell. Williams then reported the earlier test results that had alarmed medical staffers. But Howell offered nothing …

by Douglas Ankney

Private prison and jail medical provider Wellpath, LLC has announced a plan to exit bankruptcy proceedings, as reported elsewhere in this issue. [See: PLN, May 2025, p.56.] The plan offers some relief to prisoners or their survivors who have successfully sued Wellpath for causing their injuries or deaths. However, it does not address serial discovery violations in other suits, which had the disturbing effect of delaying their resolution until the firm’s bankruptcy was in place.

As PLN reported, the firm was sanctioned twice in the past two years by the federal court for the District of Oregon. One sanction followed deletion of Nurse Patricia Sauerbry’s emails, a purge then hidden for two years from the Estate of Rocky Stewart, which was suing Wellpath over his death at the Coos County Jail in December 2017. That prompted an undisclosed settlement of the suit in May 2024. A similar purge of employee emails was also hidden from the Estate of Janelle Marie Butterfield, who committed suicide at the Josephine County Jail when Wellpath staffers allegedly discontinued her psych meds “without explanation.” Wellpath was sanctioned for that with a liability judgment, and the case is proceeding toward …

The South County Correctional Entity, a jail shared by six cities in Washington’s King County and located in the Seattle suburb of Des Moines, recorded its sixth death in 11 months on February 1, 2025. Known locally as SCORE, the lockup was slammed for inadequate healthcare by a former nurse with its contracted medical provider, Wellpath.

“It was the most unprofessional place I’ve ever worked in my life,” said RN Lisa Rogers.

She was the only medical provider on duty, she said, assisted by two lower-level nurses who handed out medication. Her complaints to supervisors were repeatedly rebuffed, she added, until she was abruptly let go for sleeping on the job in October 2024—one day after she mentioned feeling drowsy to a guard sergeant. Wellpath filed for bankruptcy the following month, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Jan. 2025, p.31.]

The jail’s most recent death was that of Patricia Ryden, 64, but no cause has yet been determined by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office (KCMEO). Before that, Dwight D. Benson, died at a hospital on January 27, 2025, one day after release from SCORE. He had a long history of DUI violations; no cause of death …