$3 million payout in jail suit

A family’s 17-year quest to hold the city accountable for their mother’s death on Rikers Island due to an asthma attack has ended with a $3 million jury verdict.

Eva Luckey, 45, died in April 2002 at the Rose M. Singer Center while being held on a charge of petit larceny. The mother of six was behind bars because she couldn’t pay $500 bail, according to Richard Gross, an attorney for the family.

Conflicting accounts about Luckey’s final moments were at the center of the case. Some inmates claimed that they tried to administer CPR while staff refused to intervene.

The case took so long to reach trial in Bronx Supreme Court that one of Luckey’s six children died while it was pending.

“I think there was a sense she finally got justice,” Gross said of the verdict reached Friday.

The four-week trial featured dramatic testimony by one of the two former correction officers sued for not doing enough to save her life. Ex-Correction Officer Connie Rashid took the stand and said that when she’d alerted a colleague that Luckey was suffering from an asthma attack, the colleague replied “the bi—es lie,” according to Gross.

The correction officer, who apparently believed that inmates fake medical emergencies, then went to the bathroom instead of assisting Rashid, Gross said, recalling testimony.

Rashid also testified that while she attempted to administer CPR, an inmate snatched away a mask she was using to breath air into Luckey’s lungs. The inmate tried to rescuscitate Luckey herself. Rashid testified she then refused to use the mask because the inmate had touched it, according to Gross.

The jury awarded $1.5 million for Luckey’s 20 to 30 minutes of suffering. Three of Luckey’s kids who were living with her at the time of her death were each awarded $500,000.