Detainee died at Rikers: Now her family is suing

The grieving family of a woman who died of complications from diabetes while detained in the troubled Rikers Island jail complex has filed a wrongful death suit against the city.

Mary Yehudah, 30, was discovered unconscious in her cell at the Rose M. Singer Center last May 17 and died the next day at Elmhurst Hospital Center.

Attorneys for Barbara Yehudah, identified in court filings as Mary Yehudah’s sister, filed the suit in Bronx Supreme Court on Wednesday, demanding a jury trial.

Yehudah was locked up at Rikers after she was charged with robbery and held on $10,000 bail.

Her family claims Correction Department officials failed to do routine checkups for commonly detectable conditions, including diabetes, upon intake.

Under city code, inmates are required to undergo medical screening before being admitted to a Correction Department facility.

The family charges that had she been screened, employees at the jail would have noticed common signs of diabetes that Mary Yehudah was exhibiting. Those included high blood pressure, obesity, shortness of breath and heart palpitations.

The woman went untreated for three months during which she “experienced extraordinary physical and emotional pain,” the suit reads.

The filings also claim correction officials were slow to transfer Yehudah to Elmhurst Hospital Center. She didn’t arrive at the hospital’s emergency department until 10:08 a.m., more than an hour after another inmate noticed she was in medical distress and alerted a guard, according to the suit.

The hospital is a roughly 15-minute drive from Rikers.

Jail employees first believed Yehudah died of a drug overdose, and administered Narcan after she was found unconscious. In July, the family filed a $50 million notice of claim when they announced they planned to sue the city.

In Wednesday’s court papers, the family asked for an “award of money damages as a just compensation.”