Rats, mold, sewage leaks, abuse: Suits allege litany of complaints about Passaic jail
Two more former inmates of the Passaic County Jail are suing the county, its sheriff, the warden and others over a raft of alleged abuses they claim to have endured during their stay at the Paterson lockup, driving the number of such lawsuits filed in the last month to nearly a half-dozen.
The new complaints, filed Wednesday in state Superior Court on behalf of former inmates Jessica Witman and Travis Mann, read much the same as the first three. They claim the jail has rats, no heat, sewage backups, scalding showers and mold throughout the 64-year-old compound.
The complaints also accuse county corrections officers of abusing Witman and Mann because of their race or sex and ignoring them during major medical emergencies, including Mann’s heart attack.
Andrew Smith, the Summit attorney who has filed all five suits, did not respond to an immediate request for comment Thursday. But he said earlier this month that someone must be held accountable for the jail's conditions.
"No human should have been subjected to them," Smith said.
The litany of complaints comes just as Passaic County officials start to shutter the Marshall Street complex and send the inmates to the newer, less-crowded Bergen County Jail in Hackensack.
And they echo historical accusations that the jail is unsanitary, rodent-infested and dangerous. One 2008 class-action lawsuit went so far as to call conditions at the facility an “affront to human decency.”
But jail officials say they’ve made headway correcting the issues. Bill Maer, a spokesman for Passaic County Sheriff Richard Berdnik, said the facility has had “nearly impeccable inspections” from state regulators over the last several years.
On Thursday, Maer referred questions to Albert Buglione, Berdnik's personal attorney.
Buglione called the allegations “a regurgitation of what they stated in the other lawsuits” and denied them entirely.
“They are ridiculous,” Buglione said. “The sheriff does not operate like this, and he is a man of complete integrity.”
Witman, of Paterson, said in her eight-count complaint that her jail cell was "uninhabitable" and had sewage leaking from the ceiling. Witman said she put buckets on the floor to catch the leaks. When she complained, the jail staff simply told her, "Well, you shouldn't have gotten arrested," according to the suit.
Several corrections officers who were named in the lawsuit also acted disrespectfully or abusively toward her, she said. And two of them made a number of sexually explicit advances while she was incarcerated and after she was released in April 2021 after more than two months inside.
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Witman admitted in the suit that she never made a formal grievance. But she did complain about the officers' conduct, which was "open and obvious," the suit says.
She also accused the jail's medical staff of moving her to an abandoned part of the jail after she contracted COVID-19. She had no water in her cell, and when she complained about the conditions, she was allegedly attacked verbally with profane language.
She also claims she received no medical treatment aside from over-the-counter cold medicine and Pepto Bismol during her lengthy sickness.
Mann lodged similar complaints in his six-count suit, and added that corrections officers had no respect for the inmates.
He claims one of the guards slammed his head into a wall without provocation after Mann got into an argument with another inmate on Jan. 16. He was eventually treated for a large knot on his head, the suit says.
The complaint also says the guards ignored his requests for medical attention when he felt his heart racing and began throwing up blood on Dec. 29, 2020.
When he was finally taken to the jail's medical unit, a nurse sent him to the hospital with what medical professionals later said was a heart attack, the suit says.
He was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat and hypertension — conditions that his suit says worsened because of the lack of care.
"The failure to properly treat Plaintiff at the Jail has exacerbated his heart condition, which he was told was brought on by stress," the suit says. "He now must take medication for the rest of his life."
He also said one corrections officer made racially charged comments about his Native American heritage.
He alleges that the jail's refusal to follow federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance regarding COVID-19 protocols led to his contracting the disease twice in 2021.
While he was sick, he received no medical care or medication, the suit claimed.
Steve Janoski covers law enforcement for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news about those who safeguard your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
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This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Passaic County NJ jail: Lawsuit claims abuse, rats, mold
