Brother of patient at Whiting files brutality suits
36 staff let go amid outcry over videos of abuse
“There was a complete absence of accountability, discipline, care, compassion and leadership. There was negligence at every level of the agency and in the entire chain of command at Whiting.” ANTONIO PONVERT III, ATTORNEY FOR AL SHEHADI
The brother of William Shehadi Jr., whose abuse at the hands of employees of the Whiting Forensic Division of Connecticut Valley Hospital was documented on videotape, filed lawsuits Thursday in state and federal courts.
“The relentless abuse inflicted by state employees on a helpless, mentally ill man day after day for weeks and weeks shows a level of cruelty that is sickening to the extreme,” said attorney Antonio Ponvert III of Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder, who is representing the brother, Al Shehadi of Greenwich.
The lawsuits allege that the staff responsible for the treatment and care of William “Bill” Shehadi, who has resided at the Middletown hospital for the criminally insane since he was found not guilty by reason of mental disease and defect in the killing of his father in
1995, subjected Shehadi to “unrelenting sadistic physical abuse, neglect, exploitation, humiliation and psychological torture.”
A state police investigation at the hospital that was prompted by a whistleblower complaint led to the arrests last year of 10 staff members, including forensic technicians and a nurse. Thirty-seven employees were suspended, and to date, 36 of them have been fired or “separated from service,” according to a spokeswoman for the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.
Ponvert said the employees regularly kicked and hit Shehadi, pushed him out of bed onto the floor, splashed him with liquid and blasted him in the face with an aerosol can, all of which caused Shehadi immense fear and suffering. The videotapes also showed a male nurse gyrating his groin on Shehadi’s face, and staff members dousing Shehadi with liquids, throwing food at him, and forcing him to wear a diaper on his head, according to Ponvert.
The state lawsuit, filed in Superior Court in Bridgeport, names the State of Connecticut, DMHAS and its commissioner, and 11 Whiting administrators and supervisors. The complaint claims violations of the U.S. Constitution and the Connecticut Patients’ Bill of Rights.
The federal lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, names the Whiting forensic nurses and treatment specialists who allegedly perpetrated the abuse. The suit claims violations of Shehadi’s rights under the U.S. Constitution and the Patients’ Bill of Rights as well as assault and battery and the intentional infliction of emotional distress.
DMHAS deferred comment about the lawsuits to the office of state Attorney General George Jepsen, which will be defending the claims. Jaclyn M. Severance, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, said only that the office is reviewing the complaints and declined to comment further.
State Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton, co-chair of the General Assembly’s Public Health Committee, launched an investigation into operations at Whiting and learned, she said, that the facility has been operated in “a system where there was a lack of oversight, with no checks or balances,” for years. She organized a public hearing at the state Capitol in November 2017 and said in a phone interview Wednesday evening that at least two new bills are proposed in response to the scandal and that during the current legislative session there will be a full day committed to issues at Whiting.
“I’ve requested a full oversight task force that will have subpoena powers to make (Miriam E. Delphin-Rittmon, commissioner of Mental Health and Addiction services) talk to them,” Somers said.
The task force would be made up of neutral experts who would investigate and provide the General Assembly with recommendations for reform, she said.
“I’ve talked to a few people who are very interested in serving,” Somers said. “They find the stain on Connecticut absolutely outrageous and want to be moving forward.”
Ponvert said the fact that Shehadi’s nurses and caregivers felt free to brutalize him while being filmed could only mean that the entire system at Whiting was broken.
“There was a complete absence of accountability, discipline, care, compassion and leadership,” he said. “There was negligence at every level of the agency and in the entire chain of command at Whiting.”
A staff member reported that coworkers were abusing Shehadi by kicking and bullying him, replacing his lotion and shampoo with hand sanitizer, dumping salt in his coffee, and contaminating his food with hot sauce,” according to the lawsuits.
Somers said the videotape system only preserves 30 days of footage before it is recorded over, so there is no way of knowing how long the abuse occurred. However, Somers said she saw a letter recently that Shehadi wrote 10 years ago to Dr. William Norko, the newly appointed director at Whiting who worked at the hospital, left and later returned to the top position. In the letter, she said, Shehadi wrote that Mark Cusson, the forensic head nurse, was abusing him. The Courant reported in December that Cusson, who is among those facing criminal charges, earned $173,000 a year and is now collecting a $7,000-a-month state pension.
Somers said that one of the bills pending before the Public Health Committee would require everybody who works at a DMHAS facility to be a mandated reporter of abuse. Some of the employees questioned during the investigation claimed they were not mandated reporters, she said.
Also, Somers said, the definition of “abuse” in Connecticut law is vague and needs to be revised.
Whiting has 106 maximum security beds and 141 enhanced security beds, and the cost of care is about $1,500 a day per patient, according to Somers, who said she still is waiting for salary information she requested for Norko and others.
“This is a huge cost for Connecticut,” Somers said. “If we’re spending that money, we need to be spending it wisely.”
Somers said the videotape system only preserves 30 days of footage before it is recorded over, so there is no way of knowing how long the abuse occurred.