HAMMOND | Four men filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday alleging conditions at the Lake County Jail are so dangerous they are life-threatening, including presence of the drug-resistant staph known as MRSA.
The lawsuit, which seeks to gain class-action status, seeks unspecified damages from Sheriff Roy Dominguez, two people who served as warden of the jail since May 2006 and other unidentified jail supervisors. It was filed in U.S. District Court in Hammond.
Dominguez could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
The lawsuit contends that the plaintiffs were the moving force behind the alleged violations, condoning the unconstitutional conditions.
It alleges that people are held for weeks in crowded holding cells in which they are forced to sleep on concrete floors. It also claims that people in the holding cell are not provided showers, soap or change of clothes and that toilet paper is often not available. Up to 40 men share a toilet in a cell designed to humanely hold a few people, the suit says.
"As such, the cells are breeding ground for dangerous infections," states the lawsuit, alleging that MRSA is rampant in the jail.
The lawsuit also alleges that detainees are regularly denied medical care, saying one of the men filing the lawsuit was denied his diabetes medicine for a week and dropped from 200 pounds to 155 pounds during 45 days in a holding cell.
Public entities in Indiana are directed to pay judgments of civil rights violations to which present or former public employees are liable, the suit states.
The Times has reported on more than a dozen lawsuits from former inmates against the jail. Many of the lawsuits have been thrown out.
An East Chicago man who developed a bone infection while in the Lake County Jail in 2005 received a five-figure legal settlement in March.
Ibn I. Carter-El sued Dominguez and the jail's medical provider in Hammond federal court, alleging jail staff violated his constitutional rights by failing to treat his injuries.
After more than two years of litigation in federal court, county officials and Carter-El decided in March to settle the case for $30,000 to avoid trial, Lake County Attorney John Dull said.
