MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Guards at Wisconsin’s oldest maximum-security prison failed to provide necessary medical care to inmates who died during their shift. One of them died of dehydration and another was not found until 12 hours after his stroke, authorities said Wednesday as they filed charges against the warden and eight of his co-workers.
The director of the Waupun Correctional Institution, Randall Hepp, is accused of abuse of office. The other eight are accused of mistreating inmates. Three of them are also accused of abuse of office.
“We are operating the oldest prison in the state of Wisconsin in a dangerous and reckless manner,” Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt, who led the investigation, said at a news conference announcing the charges.
If convicted, Hepp faces up to 3 1/2 years in prison. Last week, he announced he plans to retire at the end of June. In an email to Waupun staff, he wrote that he had helped improve “security and order” at the prison.
Hepp’s attorney Robert Webb declined to comment.
Three of the four deaths are the subject of federal charges. The state Department of Corrections is currently investigating the operation of the prison, and the governor asked the U.S. Department of Justice last year to investigate the smuggling of contraband at the facility.
Attorney General Jared Hoy said in a statement that more than 20 people remain under internal investigation, at least eight have been placed on leave and nine others have been fired or retired since the investigation began a year ago. Hoy urged the sheriff to continue his investigation and share all of his findings. Schmidt said he may reopen the investigation if the internal investigation turns up additional evidence.
The first of the four inmates to die, Dean Hoffman, committed suicide in solitary confinement last June. Hoffman’s daughter filed a lawsuit in federal court in February, alleging that prison officials failed to provide her father with adequate psychiatric care and medication.
Tyshun Lemons and Cameron Williams were both found dead at the facility in October. Dodge County Coroner PJ Schoebel said Lemons overdosed on acetyl fentanyl, a powerful opioid painkiller, and Williams died of a stroke.
Donald Maier was found dead in prison in February. Schmidt said his death was ruled a homicide due to malnutrition and dehydration.
All charges are related to the deaths of Williams and Maier.
Three days before his death, Williams told an inmate attorney he needed to go to the hospital, but no action was taken, a criminal complaint states. Two days earlier, he fell in the shower and had to crawl to his cell, and the day before that, he collapsed on the way back to his cell, but neither fall was documented, the complaint states.
He died of a stroke sometime on October 29, but his body was not discovered until the next morning, at least 12 hours after his death, according to the indictment. The nurse, sergeant and lieutenant responsible for his death never checked on him that night, the indictment says.
Maier suffered from severe mental health problems, but in the eight days before his death he either refused to take his medication or did not receive it, according to a separate lawsuit.
One inmate told investigators that Maier flooded his cell, causing guards to turn off his water. Six days before his death, he told a staff member he wanted “water, water, water, all the water in the world” and pretended to swim around his cell. Guards also saw him drinking from his toilet, the complaint states.
The guards said they turned the water off and on for Maier, but investigators said no one told him when it was turned on, the complaint states. The guards also did not bring him any food in the four days before his death, the complaint states.
When asked if his staff understood the prison’s water shutoff policy, Hepp told them that while it was sent via email, he didn’t believe anyone in any facility actually read it and that no prison in the United States documented every meal an inmate ate.
Attorney Mark Hazelbaker is representing Gwendolyn Vick, a nurse accused of abuse in connection with Williams’ death. According to the lawsuit, a nurse from a previous shift told her that Williams was on the floor of his cell, but she never checked on him. She told investigators she told guards she wasn’t sure it was necessary to enter his cell because Williams kept trying to get taken to the hospital, the lawsuit says.
Hazelbaker said Vick was “very sad” that four people had died in the prison, but she was not responsible for anyone. She had a right to be heard on prison health care issues, he said, adding that the real incompetence lay with the Department of Corrections, which had failed to adequately staff and replace the aging prison.
According to the agency, staff vacancy in Waupun was at 43% at the end of May.
“I can’t stress enough that this is a system failure of massive proportions,” Hazelbaker said. “It’s dangerous. People don’t want to work there.”
Waupun’s problems go beyond inmate deaths. Gov. Tony Evers’ office said in March that federal investigators are looking into an alleged smuggling ring involving prison employees.
In response to the charges, Evers said Wednesday that anyone who failed to do their job would be held accountable.
Republican lawmakers on Wednesday again called on Evers to close the prison in Waupun and another maximum-security prison in Green Bay, both of which were built in the 19th century.
“Tony Evers can no longer bury his head in the sand,” said state Senator Van Wanggaard, chairman of the Senate committee that oversees state prisons.
