Former inmate files suit against jail

A former inmate at the Whitley County Detention Center is suing the county Jailer and the jail’s “medical director” for $20 million claiming he was denied medical attention during his incarceration at the facility in 2007.

In a federal lawsuit filed August 8, former inmate Jason Coffey claims that when we was housed in the Whitley County Detention Center on August 6, 2007, jail employees would not let him see a doctor, denied to give him medication that was prescribed to him and refused to let him have needed dental work performed. Coffey, who was in the facility for 34 days, says he had a herniated disc in his spine when he came to the jail. He now resides in the Kentucky State Reformatory in La Grange.

“At that time previous, MRI showed that I had a hernated Disk in my Spine. I requested to see a Doctor and was denied,” Coffey writes in the lawsuit. “They also denied me my medication (Vidocan E5 7.5) Which had been prescribed by my personal Physician. I finally saw the Jail Nurse who simply told me to ‘DEAL WITH IT.'”
Coffey said he received Tylenol about every three days to deal with pain. He said his Eighth Amendment right to protection from “cruel and unusual punishment” was ignored.

Included in the lawsuit are three affidavits from current or former prisoners at the Whitley County Detention Center (Thomas Pike III, Joseph Griffiths and Derek Hodge) all who claim they have witnessed other inmates being denied medication, and have been denied medicine and medical attention themselves.
The lawsuit was originally filed in U.S. District Court in the Western District of Kentucky, but was moved to London by judge’s order. No response has been filed in the case on behalf of the any of the defendants.

Whitley County Jailer Ken Mobley said medical services at the jail are provided by Health Professionals, a company based in Indiana, but would not comment further on the case.