Victim of a sexual assault at the Lexington jail sues the city, jail officers
A victim who claims he was sexually assaulted in the Fayette County Detention Center has filed a federal lawsuit against the city, another inmate and jail officials — alleging a lack of staffing allowed the violent assault to occur.
The plaintiff filed the suit in U.S. District Court Friday, accusing the city and jail of negligence, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The victim also alleged his Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated. The Herald-Leader doesn’t identify victims of alleged sexual assault.
Thirteen jail employees were listed as defendants in their official and individual capacities, along with “unknown” jail guards and supervisors, and the inmate accused of committing the assault.
The plaintiff alleges the city and corrections officers are responsible for the attack based on a “theory of systemic failure of policies and procedures ... with gross deficiencies in staffing, facilities and procedures.”
City and jail officials were not immediately available for comment on Wednesday morning.
The plaintiff was housed in the Fayette County Detention Center in September 2022, and prior to that instance, he had no criminal record and had never been arrested, court documents allege.
The plaintiff was housed alongside Quentin Lee Love, who faces several charges — murder, assault, terroristic threatening and wanton endangerment. He is accused of murdering 63-year-old Robert Clay in 2020.
Love has allegedly been disciplined for 34 instances of misconduct while incarcerated. Those incidents include threatening staff, assaulting inmates and “possessing dangerous contraband,” the plaintiff alleged in his lawsuit.
The plaintiff was placed in the same maximum security pod with Love, who is alleged to have physically and sexually assaulted the victim during that time, court documents state. The plaintiff was released from the jail and treated for his injuries, and a police investigation resulted in Love being charged with sodomy, strangulation and assault.
The lawsuit alleges James Erisman, a corrections corporal, was supposed to be monitoring the pod when he and another unknown defendant took an unauthorized break and left the inmates completely unsupervised. No supervisors or other corrections officers monitored the pod’s live video surveillance, according to the lawsuit.
“With deliberate indifference (Erisman) and unknown defendants failed to protect (the victim) from harm, and disregarded the known, obvious and excessive risks of harm to (the plaintiff),” the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit states these assaults have continued to happen. After being indicted and charged with the assault on the plaintiff, Love was again charged and indicted for another sexual assault on a different inmate, court documents state.
Plaintiff blames staffing as reason for assault
The victim’s lawsuit blames staffing shortages for the reason why the assault happened. The lawsuit includes references to multiple news articles with interviews and statistics from officials that speak to staff shortages in the jail.
The court documents quote detention center Maj. Matt LeMonds — named as a defendant in the lawsuit — who acknowledged understaffing in the jail.
Michael Harris, the president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 83, was also quoted in the lawsuit from a past new story, saying these incidents weren’t “unexpected.” The FOP Lodge No. 83 is the union representing Lexington’s jail officers.
“Due to the lack of adequate staffing, overcrowding and an attitude of indifference toward inmate safety, inmate-on-inmate assaults are not uncommon at LFUCG jail,” the victim’s attorney wrote in the lawsuit.
Susan Straub, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, previously told the Herald-Leader that the city had “found nothing to substantiate the claim that this is related to a staffing issue” when asked about whether staffing issues contributed to the assault. The investigation was still ongoing at that time.
A separate lawsuit was filed against the city and jail staff for another incident of inmate assault. Staff shortages were cited as a contributor in that case too.
But vacancies have decreased, according to city officials.
The number of staff vacancies at the jail had fallen to 92 as of June, Public Safety Commissioner Ken Armstrong said in a city council meeting. The number had gotten as high as 124 in 2022.
The corrections department also had two new recruit classes at the time, which were expected to help fill vacant positions, Armstrong said. Community corrections officers manage inmates to promote positive behavior and keep jails safe.
Officials believe an increase in starting pay for corrections officers has helped fill some vacancies at facilities. Starting salary for correction officers went from $32,000 in 2020 to $50,348 in 2023.
The biggest inhibitors to recruitment have been the employment process, the change in attitudes toward public service, scheduling preferences and the dangers of the job, Armstrong said.
This story was originally published August 2, 2023 at 11:41 AM.
