No proof of pervasive drug smuggling at Bucks County jail: judge rules in death lawsuit

A federal judge has dismissed a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the mother of a Philadelphia man who fatally overdosed while incarcerated in Bucks County, citing a lack of evidence that pervasive drug smuggling exists at the county jail.

U.S. District Court Judge Wendy Beetlestone found in favor of Bucks County and its corrections department in the complaint filed last year on behalf of the estate of Joshua Patterson, a 23-year-old father of three.

Attorney Brian Zeiger, who represented Patterson’s mother, Valeria Corbin, expressed disappointment in the decision. “We disagree, but we respect the judge’s decision," he said.

More on the death of Joshua Patterson Is Bucks County jail unit 'rampant' with drugs? Inmate death blamed on pattern of neglect

Corbin sued the county and individual correctional employees in the 2022 death. The legal claims were dismissed against all defendants, but the two corrections officers responsible for searching inmates for narcotics upon their arrival at the correctional center, according to the 17-page opinion.

What happened to Joshua Patterson at the Bucks County Correction Center

Patterson had been incarcerated for roughly eight months on an alleged probation violation when a corrections officer found him in his cell, unresponsive and not breathing in on July 27, 2022, according to court documents.

He was taken to Doylestown Hospital where he died Aug. 1. The Bucks County Coroner’s Office determined the death was the result of fentanyl intoxication.

Another Bucks County inmate, Allen Rhoades Jr., 31, of Philadelphia, was later charged with providing Patterson the drugs that killed him. He is awaiting trial on drug delivery resulting in death, felony drug charges and misdemeanor reckless endangering.

Four other Bucks County inmates were also charged with allegedly smuggling and distributing fentanyl and methamphetamines at the jail.

In her lawsuit Corbin alleged the county was responsible for her son's death because corrections staff missed a "baseball size" bag of fentanyl and methamphetamines Rhoades concealed on his body.

Corbin argued that her son would not have acquired the fentanyl that killed him if the corrections officers performed their duties according to the jail’s standard operating procedures and proper corrections practices for searching inmates.

The lawsuit also asserted that a “persistent smuggling problem” exists at the jail and the corrections department and its corrections department and officers are aware of it, but ignore it.”

What the evidence shows about how Allen Rhoades allegedly got drugs into the jail

Correctional officers failed to find the drugs during a routine clothed pat down search of Rhoades before he was placed in to a holding cell, according to court filings.

Jail video captured Rhoades moving the drugs from his pants, to a meal bag, then later into a laundry bag containing his prison uniform during 40 seconds when he was left “entirely unsupervised” in the holding cell, court documents said.

Ultimately Rhoades was able to smuggle the unnoticed drugs into the general population where he almost immediately started selling them to other inmates including Patterson, who overdosed less than a day later, the lawsuit alleges.

But Beetlestone concluded that while Patterson was able to obtain drugs at least once during his incarceration, “no reasonable juror” after reviewing submitted documentation would find in Corbin’s favor on the claims the jail has a “persistent smuggling problem” or the staff show “deliberate indifference” toward it.

The judge found no “direct evidence” that either correction officer on duty when Rhoades was admitted was aware that drugs entered the jail, which was necessary to prove the claim.

The judge also concluded that while eight other inmates in the same housing module as Patterson also tested positive for drugs after his death, six entered the jail a few days earlier, “thus it would be purely speculative to conclude that drugs in their system were obtained while incarcerated.”

Bucks County data suggests drug smuggling is rare at the jail. News reports tell a different story

Based on available facts, Beetlestone said she concluded that no “reasonable” jury would find the corrections officers should have known there was an “unacceptable risk” of drugs flowing into the jail and they deliberately ignored the risk.

Beetlestone cited county-provided data showing that over the previous decade corrections officers recovered drugs and related-paraphernalia 67 times during routine searches of 34,463 new commitments and officers recovered drugs from an inmate's cell only twice.

"(The data) encourage the conclusion that (the defendants') failure to stop Rhoades from bringing fentanyl into (the jail) was an unfortunate lapse in an otherwise robust contraband detection program," Beetlestone wrote.

Media reports, though, appear to contradict the county's contraband data. It shows that since 2020 at least six inmates and two former corrections officers have been arrested and charged with smuggling and distributing illegal drugs inside the jail.

Less than six months after Patterson’s death. another detainee died of a drug overdose two weeks after he was incarcerated at the Doylestown Township jail. But Beetlestone wrote that there was not enough evidence to draw parallels between the two overdose deaths.

What records Bucks County wanted Judge Beetlestone to seal and what request did she deny

As part of her order Beetlestone also granted a separate motion the county sought to seal “certain non-public and operationally sensitive” correctional materials that were part of discovery, including surveillance video, but denied the county’s request to also seal information about the post-incident investigative process.

The county sought to seal records showing the materials investigators reviewed, how the post-incident interviews and searches were conducted, and where and how evidence was stored, transported and reviewed.

The county argued that the public has “little interest” in this material, and the information could help inmates hide contraband. Beetlestone disagreed.

“The public has a strong interest in the safe, efficient and orderly operation of its prison system,” she wrote. “This interest would be directly advanced by allowing the access to information from which the public could assess the adequacy of (the jail's) post-incident investigation process.”

Reporter Jo Ciavaglia can be reached at Jciavaglia@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Judge: Bucks County not liable for inmate's 2022 overdose death.