Parkland shooter’s brother tortured in jail, suit claims

The president and CEO of a group suing Broward officials for violating the civil rights of Zachary Cruz, brother of the Parkland school shooter, called on Broward Sheriff Scott Israel to resign Thursday.

“Your deputies don’t have confidence in you, the people don’t have confidence in you,” said Mike Donovan, whose group, Nexus Services, filed the federal lawsuit Thursday.

Israel, speaking at a national day of prayer service at his agency’s headquarters Thursday morning, said he had not seen the lawsuit and declined to comment on the jail’s treatment of Cruz. He has indicated several times he has no intention of resigning.

The lawsuit names the captain who oversees the Broward Main Jail for the Sheriff’s Office, the prosecutor assigned to the case, and Broward County Judge Kim Theresa Mollica, who set a $500,000 bond for Cruz in March, when Cruz was charged with trespassing, a misdemeanor with a maximum 60-day jail sentence.

Donovan also accused deputies at the main jail of “torturing” Cruz, using “sleep-deprivation tactics we wouldn’t tolerate on the battlefield.”

Cruz was arrested again this week, accused of violating the terms of his probation.

He was first arrested in March, accused of trespassing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

His brother, Nikolas Cruz, had been accused of killing 17 people and injuring 17 more at the Parkland school Feb. 14.

Zachary Cruz entered a nocontest plea to resolve the charge. The lawsuit seeks to have Cruz’s plea deal set aside.

“The treatment he received [in jail] was coercive,” said Dallas LePierre, an attorney with Nexus Derechos Humanos, a group of pro bono attorneys. “That makes the contract — and the plea deal was a contract — unconscionable in its terms.”