Suit: Unvaccinated woman a ‘sitting duck’ for COVID in prison
A Rhode Island woman serving eight years in the Danbury Federal Correctional Institution for her role in a $10 million Ponzi scheme is suing the prison and its warden to be released to home confinement because she claims she cannot safely be vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the complaint.
Monique Brady, 46, contends in the complaint filed Dec. 16 that the prison is failing to take precautions against COVID-19 and she was wrongly passed over for home confinement even though she has underlying medical conditions that make her vulnerable to the disease. In the lawsuit, Brady claims she was advised to not receive further vaccinations after suffering a bad reaction from the first shot.
After dozens of women in the area where she is housed tested positive for COVID-19 last week, Brady is now asking a judge to move up the Jan. 14 deadline the prison has to “show cause” as to why she shouldn’t be released.
“Respondents have learned nothing or retained nothing from the nearly two years of litigation surrounding the class action lawsuit that was brought by medically vulnerable inmates of FCI-Danbury at the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic,” Brady said in an ex-parte application for relief filed last Tuesday.
Since Brady filed the lawsuit, conditions in the minimum security “camp” where she is being held have deteriorated with more than half of the female inmates allegedly testing positive for COVID-19, according to attorneys who represented medically vulnerable inmates in a class action lawsuit that was settled in October 2020.
The Legal Clinic at Quinnipiac University School of Law complained to prison officials last week after prisoners in the camp accused the facility of not conducting broad COVID testing after 13 of the 83 women being housed there allegedly tested positive on Dec. 21, said Sarah Russell, director of the clinic and a Quinnipiac law professor.
At the time, 13 women who were exhibiting symptoms were tested and isolated, but the inmates claim the prison didn’t test the other 70 or so inmates until Dec. 27, Russell said. By that point, Russell said the women claim they were told more than 50 percent tested positive and accused the prison of not immediately isolating the infected inmates.
The women were given their test results and were separated on Dec. 28 when the Legal Clinic and others complained, Russell said.
“On the afternoon of Dec. 28, 14 people who tested negative were removed from the dorms and put in a separate area in the Camp,” Russell said. “It appears everyone else is positive and stayed in the dorms.”
Inmates also allege broad testing has not been conducted in other areas of the prison that house 904 men and in a large dorm for 116 women, Russell said.
“I am very concerned about the virus spreading through these units, particularly with no mass testing plan in place,” said Russell, who is also concerned whether prison medical staff can adequately monitor and treat so many people who have tested positive for COVID-19.
As of Dec. 30, there were 46 active COVID cases among inmates, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons website.
“COVID-19 transmission rates among staff and inmates in the BOP’s correctional institutions generally mirror those found in local communities,” said Emery Nelson, of the Office of Public Affairs within the BOP. “The BOP is using critical testing tools to help mitigate the spread of the virus and continues to provide testing for COVID-19 symptomatic inmates as well as mass testing or serial testing when indicated, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
Nelson declined to discuss Brady’s lawsuit, citing the pending litigation, and declined to provide specific information on what was happening at the prison. He also said the facility had “ample” medical staff to address the needs of inmates.
Nelson also did not answer questions about the accusations that the women were not immediately informed of their COVID test results. Nelson instead pointed to the BOP website information on how the federal prison system is handling the pandemic.
“Inmates who test positive for COVID-19 or are symptomatic are medically isolated and provided medical care until they are considered recovered by medical staff as determined by CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidelines,” Nelson said.
The Quinnipiac Legal Clinic, along with law clinics from Yale University and the University of Buffalo, filed a lawsuit in 2020 on behalf of medically vulnerable inmates to get people who were at low or minimum risk of re-offending sent to home confinement to protect their health during the pandemic.
The prison and the legal clinics agreed to a settlement that allowed nearly all of the low-risk medically vulnerable inmates to be released to home confinement, according to court filings.
Brady, an attorney and businesswoman, was sentenced in 2020 to eight years in prison after authorities said she duped family, friends and business associates to help finance an extravagant lifestyle, including a $1 million home, numerous vacations abroad and trips to the Super Bowl.
In her lawsuit, Brady claims she has been repeatedly passed over for release.
Brady contends in the documents that she is being treated for bursitis, carpel tunnel and arthritis with cortisone, which can lower her immune system. She is also a 25-year smoker who is now considered “obese” since she gained weight while incarcerated, according to the lawsuit.
According to Brady, the prison’s physician told her not to get a second COVID-19 vaccination or a booster because she had an extreme allergic reaction to the first shot. She is alleging that conditions at the prison are “cruel and unusual punishment” in violation of her Eighth Amendment rights and make her a “sitting duck” because she is unable to social distance and cannot be fully vaccinated.