04-25-2008, 09:17 AM
COURTS
Ex-sheriff to testify from jail
Disgraced ex-Sheriff Ken Jenne will testify Friday in the case of a Coral Springs man who suffered severe brain damage while being held at the Broward County Jail.
Posted on Fri, Apr. 25, 2008Digg del.icio.us AIM reprint print email
BY DAN CHRISTENSEN
dchristensen@MiamiHerald.com
From behind the walls of a federal penitentiary in rural Virginia where he's serving time for corruption, former Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne will testify under oath Friday about how he used to run the Broward County Jail.
Jenne is a defendant in a pending federal civil rights lawsuit brought by the family of an inmate found lying in a pool of blood in a maximum-security unit on Dec. 16, 2005. Jenne is named personally, meaning it's possible he would have to reach into his own pocket if a jury assesses damages against him.
Deeper-pocketed defendants include Broward County and Jenne's handpicked jail healthcare provider, Miami-based Armor Correctional Health Services.
The family of Dana Clyde Jones alleges detention deputies ''incited'' other inmates to attack Jones for making a vulgar remark to a female guard. They contend the sheriff's office later covered up what happened. BSO detectives have said they couldn't figure out whether Jones, who suffered brain injuries so severe he was in a coma-like state for months, was beaten, or slipped and fell.
Jones, 46, is now conscious but can't walk or talk. He's confined to a Pompano Beach nursing home and fed through a tube. The lawsuit alleges he is not receiving appropriate therapy.
Private lawyers retained by new Sheriff Al Lamberti to defend BSO tried and failed last month to block Jenne's deposition. They argued Jenne knows nothing about the case, and called it ''merely a means to harass and demean'' the former sheriff.
''Frankly, Mr. Jenne demeaned himself without any help from the plaintiff,'' replied family attorney Barbara Heyer in court papers.
U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke decided Jenne must testify.
Gregg Toomey, who will represent the sheriff's office at the deposition, did not respond to requests for comment.
Heyer traveled to Lee Penitentiary near Jonesville, Va., Thursday to question Jenne. She'll ask him about BSO's investigation, and conditions at Broward's jail.
The lawsuit accuses Jenne of setting the stage for Jones' beating by ''abdicating his policymaking and oversight responsibilities.'' It says Jenne covered up inmate abuse by ``failing to document inmate fights and doing incompetent investigations.''
Broward commissioners ''tolerated'' the abuse, allowing it to become de facto county policy, the suit says.
''It's ridiculous to say Mr. Jenne had no knowledge given his very hands-on approach in terms of handling the jail,'' Heyer said in an interview.
Trial is scheduled for mid-August.
Jones was arrested by Coral Springs police on Nov. 1, 2004, and accused of punching his elderly mother in the mouth after she asked him to turn down the television. A judge declared him incompetent three months later, and had him shipped to a state mental hospital.
Jones was treated and returned to Broward in August 2005, where jail officials placed him in the general population. His family contends Jones, who had a history of mental illness, was improperly classified, and wrongly denied separate quarters and close supervision.
Then, as now, the county's jail system was under a 1994 federal consent decree intended to resolve unconstitutional conditions like overcrowding. The decree contains specific requirements for classifying, separating, monitoring and housing inmates.
Jones didn't get a cell. Rather, he was assigned to sleep in a body-size ''blue plastic boat'' on the floor outside the cells. Guards call it ``sleeping on I-95.''
A guard found Jones unconscious and bloodied on the floor next to his boat. Photographs appear to show multiple injuries to both sides of his head and his face.
Jones' sister, Cheryl Jones Albert of Plantation, has said the family didn't find out he'd been injured until six days later. BSO didn't tell her. Staffers at Broward General Medical Center did.
When Jones was discharged to the nursing home, the hospital obtained a $449,000 lien against him. The hospital acted because BSO had gotten itself and its jail healthcare provider off the financial hook by having a judge order Jones released on his own recognizance while he was unconscious, according to Jones family attorney Heyer.
Today, Medicaid pays the medical bills.
The Miami Herald reported last year that BSO detectives concluded they could not determine the cause of Jones' injuries without taking sworn statements from a number of witnesses, including the deputy who found Jones on the floor.
Similarly, detectives did not re-interview under oath three prisoners and two guards after inmate Benjamin Whitfield came forward late in the investigation and accused them of conspiring to beat Jones.
BSO detectives dropped Whitfield's allegations after they said he failed a polygraph test. When The Miami Herald later asked for a copy of the test so it could be sent to an independent expert for evaluation, a BSO spokesman said it had been lost.
It looks like Al is spending our raise on his close buddy Ken Jenne and doesn't want him to be harassed....
Thanks Al....
Ex-sheriff to testify from jail
Disgraced ex-Sheriff Ken Jenne will testify Friday in the case of a Coral Springs man who suffered severe brain damage while being held at the Broward County Jail.
Posted on Fri, Apr. 25, 2008Digg del.icio.us AIM reprint print email
BY DAN CHRISTENSEN
dchristensen@MiamiHerald.com
From behind the walls of a federal penitentiary in rural Virginia where he's serving time for corruption, former Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne will testify under oath Friday about how he used to run the Broward County Jail.
Jenne is a defendant in a pending federal civil rights lawsuit brought by the family of an inmate found lying in a pool of blood in a maximum-security unit on Dec. 16, 2005. Jenne is named personally, meaning it's possible he would have to reach into his own pocket if a jury assesses damages against him.
Deeper-pocketed defendants include Broward County and Jenne's handpicked jail healthcare provider, Miami-based Armor Correctional Health Services.
The family of Dana Clyde Jones alleges detention deputies ''incited'' other inmates to attack Jones for making a vulgar remark to a female guard. They contend the sheriff's office later covered up what happened. BSO detectives have said they couldn't figure out whether Jones, who suffered brain injuries so severe he was in a coma-like state for months, was beaten, or slipped and fell.
Jones, 46, is now conscious but can't walk or talk. He's confined to a Pompano Beach nursing home and fed through a tube. The lawsuit alleges he is not receiving appropriate therapy.
Private lawyers retained by new Sheriff Al Lamberti to defend BSO tried and failed last month to block Jenne's deposition. They argued Jenne knows nothing about the case, and called it ''merely a means to harass and demean'' the former sheriff.
''Frankly, Mr. Jenne demeaned himself without any help from the plaintiff,'' replied family attorney Barbara Heyer in court papers.
U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke decided Jenne must testify.
Gregg Toomey, who will represent the sheriff's office at the deposition, did not respond to requests for comment.
Heyer traveled to Lee Penitentiary near Jonesville, Va., Thursday to question Jenne. She'll ask him about BSO's investigation, and conditions at Broward's jail.
The lawsuit accuses Jenne of setting the stage for Jones' beating by ''abdicating his policymaking and oversight responsibilities.'' It says Jenne covered up inmate abuse by ``failing to document inmate fights and doing incompetent investigations.''
Broward commissioners ''tolerated'' the abuse, allowing it to become de facto county policy, the suit says.
''It's ridiculous to say Mr. Jenne had no knowledge given his very hands-on approach in terms of handling the jail,'' Heyer said in an interview.
Trial is scheduled for mid-August.
Jones was arrested by Coral Springs police on Nov. 1, 2004, and accused of punching his elderly mother in the mouth after she asked him to turn down the television. A judge declared him incompetent three months later, and had him shipped to a state mental hospital.
Jones was treated and returned to Broward in August 2005, where jail officials placed him in the general population. His family contends Jones, who had a history of mental illness, was improperly classified, and wrongly denied separate quarters and close supervision.
Then, as now, the county's jail system was under a 1994 federal consent decree intended to resolve unconstitutional conditions like overcrowding. The decree contains specific requirements for classifying, separating, monitoring and housing inmates.
Jones didn't get a cell. Rather, he was assigned to sleep in a body-size ''blue plastic boat'' on the floor outside the cells. Guards call it ``sleeping on I-95.''
A guard found Jones unconscious and bloodied on the floor next to his boat. Photographs appear to show multiple injuries to both sides of his head and his face.
Jones' sister, Cheryl Jones Albert of Plantation, has said the family didn't find out he'd been injured until six days later. BSO didn't tell her. Staffers at Broward General Medical Center did.
When Jones was discharged to the nursing home, the hospital obtained a $449,000 lien against him. The hospital acted because BSO had gotten itself and its jail healthcare provider off the financial hook by having a judge order Jones released on his own recognizance while he was unconscious, according to Jones family attorney Heyer.
Today, Medicaid pays the medical bills.
The Miami Herald reported last year that BSO detectives concluded they could not determine the cause of Jones' injuries without taking sworn statements from a number of witnesses, including the deputy who found Jones on the floor.
Similarly, detectives did not re-interview under oath three prisoners and two guards after inmate Benjamin Whitfield came forward late in the investigation and accused them of conspiring to beat Jones.
BSO detectives dropped Whitfield's allegations after they said he failed a polygraph test. When The Miami Herald later asked for a copy of the test so it could be sent to an independent expert for evaluation, a BSO spokesman said it had been lost.
It looks like Al is spending our raise on his close buddy Ken Jenne and doesn't want him to be harassed....
Thanks Al....