Man who was denied epilepsy medication while in prison awarded $12M by federal jury
A man who said staff at an Illinois prison denied him his prescribed epilepsy medication while he was an inmate there was awarded $12 million on Friday by a federal jury in Chicago.
Raymond Fox suffered permanent brain damage from an aneurysm caused by a series of seizures and now requires personal care, his counsel told the jury, according to WBEZ and the Chicago Tribune. An earlier WBEZ article provides additional details.
An inmate in a neighboring cell said he heard Fox repeatedly pleading with officers and medical staff at Stateville Correctional Center that he needed his medicine, after his Dilantin prescription ran out.
“It’s about the psychology of not seeing the human portion of the people that are incarcerated for any number of reasons,” attorney Michael Kanovitz, who represented Fox in the suit against two medical technicians, told WBEZ. “Most people, if they break a law and they have to go to prison, they are there to pay their debt to society. It is not right to injure them in a way that will follow them for the rest of their life.”
None of the articles include any comment from the Illinois Attorney General’s office, which represented the medical technicians. Other defendants in the lawsuit settled previously.
His mother has been providing care for Fox, 50.
