Officer and nurse ignored inmate’s serious medical needs until he died, feds say
A man’s medical crisis in prison became fatal when his needs were continuously ignored by federal corrections staff, including a lieutenant found guilty of failing to get him care, prosecutors said.
The 47-year-old man repeatedly fell into walls and objects inside his cell, causing bruising and bleeding; struggled to stand or walk; lost control of his bladder; and showed other signs of a “sudden neurological crisis” at the Federal Correctional Institution at Petersburg in Virginia in 2021, according to prosecutors.
Shronda Covington, a then-lieutenant, and Tonya Farley, who was a nurse at the prison, ignored pleas from other inmates and staff members to get the man help, prosecutors said. By not acting, they were accused of violating Federal Bureau of Prisons policy on medical care.
After a final fall, the man died on Jan 10. 2021, McClatchy News previously reported.
He “fell head-first into a wall and then to the floor” of his observation cell, resulting in his death, prosecutors said.
Other inmates’ calls for help went unanswered as the man was on the ground for nearly two hours, according to prosecutors. He died of blunt-force head trauma, according to an autopsy, prosecutors said.
The autopsy also found that a lack of medical attention during multiple falls in his cell “contributed to his death,” according to prosecutors.
Now, a federal jury found Covington, 49, of Chesterfield, guilty of violating the inmate’s civil rights by showing deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said in a Dec. 24 news release. Chesterfield is about a 20-mile drive southwest from Richmond.
Farley, 53, also of Chesterfield, was found not guilty of this charge, her defense attorney, Jeffrey Lee Everhart, told McClatchy News on Dec. 27.
Covington and Farley were convicted of making false statements to a federal agent, prosecutors said.
“We are disappointed in the verdict, but respect the time and hard work the jury expended in trying our case,” Everhart said of Farley’s conviction.
Covington’s defense attorneys, Fernando Groene and Melissa E. O’Boyle, declined a request for comment from McClatchy News on Dec. 27.
Corrections officer sentenced in inmate’s death
Another former lieutenant at FCI Petersburg, Michael Anderson, was sentenced on Nov. 28, 2023, to three years in prison in connection with the inmate’s death, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, McClatchy News reported.
Anderson was accused of promising the man’s cellmate that he’d get the man medical attention but never alerted medical staff or other officers of his condition, according to prosecutors.
Minutes after the man fell into a door frame and hit his head on Jan. 10, 2021, Anderson was made aware but “failed to act” again, prosecutors wrote in court documents.
Anderson later pleaded guilty in connection with the man’s death, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Ahead of his sentencing, Anderson wrote in a statement that he “made a very grave mistake of not understanding the seriousness of (his) decision making as a lieutenant,” court documents show.
‘Appalling indifference’
In a statement on Covington’s conviction, Tim Edmiston, special agent in charge of the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General Mid-Atlantic region, said:
“Covington’s inexcusable apathy to the medical needs of (the man) over the course of two days caused his unnecessary death.”
“Covington and Farley also decided to lie about their involvement in order to escape accountability,” Edmiston added.
The day before the man’s death, a correctional officer told Covington that the man was eating out of a trash can, urinating on himself and falling down in his cell at FCI Petersburg, court documents say.
Later, in an interview with federal agents, Covington lied and said the officer told her the man was walking around his cell, doing pushups and listening to music that day, according to a superseding indictment.
The facility’s staff also heard from the man’s cellmate, who reported the morning of Jan. 9, 2021, that he “was exhibiting bizarre and unprecedented behavior, including that he was suddenly incontinent and unable to talk and walk normally,” prosecutors said.
Farley was accused of writing a fake report about the man’s death.
In a Bureau of Prisons Clinical Encounter Report, Farley wrote that the man showed “no signs or symptoms of ‘acute distress,’ when, as (she) then well knew, (he) was exhibiting multiple signs of acute distress,” prosecutors wrote in the superseding indictment.
Covington and Farley’s 10-day jury trial ended with the jury deliberating for more than 10 hours, Everhart told McClatchy News.
Everhart said while he and his co-counsel, Robert Wagner, were disappointed that Farley was convicted of making a false statement to a federal agent, they will represent her “at sentencing, and on appeal should she decide that is an avenue she wishes to pursue.”
Covington’s sentencing hearing is set for May 7, and Farley’s sentencing is scheduled for the next day, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“These defendants showed an appalling indifference and disregard for (the man’s) life,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.
This story was originally published December 27, 2024 at 9:05 AM with the headline "Officer and nurse ignored inmate’s serious medical needs until he died, feds say."
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