CROWN POINT — In the 2-1/2 years since the federal government ended its oversight of the Lake County Jail, three inmates have taken their own lives, two died from drug overdoses, one died from COVID-19 complications and one died because of a pre-existing heart condition.
Attorneys for the families of four of those inmates have filed lawsuits against the county, Sheriff Oscar Martinez Jr. and others alleging correctional officers violated the inmates' civil rights by failing to provide adequate medical care and supervision to prevent their loved ones' deaths.
In court filings, the defendants denied allegations the Lake County Jail has a history of insufficient medical staffing, inadequate acute and chronic medical care, inadequate training relating to suicide prevention and inadequate comprehensive suicide assessments.
In a statement, Martinez said a report released in December 2021 by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics showed local jails had a mortality rate in 2019 of 16.7 per 10,000 bookings.
"Lake County Jail does approximately 10,000 bookings per year," he said. "So far this year, we have had two deaths at the jail, which is fewer than the national average."
The federal report also showed the rate of jail suicide deaths in 2019 was 4.9 per 10,000. The rate of jail deaths due to drug or alcohol intoxication was 2.6 per 10,000.
In the latest death at the Lake County Jail, a 33-year-old Lake Station man booked in April 13 was found unresponsive about 12:30 a.m. May 6 by a correctional officer conducting a routine check, the sheriff said.
Correctional officers and jail medical staff attempted life-saving procedures and called an ambulance, but the man was pronounced dead after he was transported to Methodist Hospitals Southlake Campus in Merrillville, according to police and the Lake County coroner's office.
The man's cause of death was asphyxia by hanging, the coroner's office said.
The man was being held at the jail on a petition to revoke his probation in an August 2021 case in which he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor possession of methamphetamine.
Two inmates died by suicide in 2021, according to information provided by the Lake County Sheriff's Department.
A 62-year-old Lakes of the Four Seasons man, identified in U.S. District Court records as Christopher DeRisi, died from asphyxia caused by hanging March 3, 2021, records showed. He was incarcerated in March 2021 on domestic battery charges, records show.
A 23-year-old Crown Point man, identified in court records as Daniel Skonieczny, died in mid-September 2021, also from asphyxia caused by hanging.
Skonieczny was arrested Sept. 13, 2021, on several drug-related charges. His date of death was listed as Sept. 16, 2021, by the Sheriff's Department and as Sept. 17, 2021, in a lawsuit.
The men's deaths were the first suicides at the jail since Lake County, former Sheriff Rogelio "Roy" Dominguez and other county boards and officials entered into a consent decree with the Department of Justice in December 2010.
The agreement was reached after federal officials investigated a series of inmate suicides, injuries and disease outbreaks and determined in 2009 that the jail had violated inmates' constitutional rights by repeatedly, deliberately and consistently disregarding known or serious risks of harm.
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Under former Sheriff John Buncich, who was convicted in a bribery scheme in August 2017, the county poured money into fixing the problems, and the jail's annual operating budget swelled to more than $22 million.
That money was in addition to a $7.2 million settlement paid in 2012 to former inmates who alleged they were held for weeks or months in overcrowded holding cells, forced to sleep on a concrete floor stained with human waste and provided "nearly nonexistent" medical care.
One of Martinez's goals after taking office in 2017 was to end the federal oversight.
He conducted a nationwide search and hired former Warden Michael Zenk, a longtime corrections manager who had served as the warden of federal prisons in Pennsylvania, New York and Georgia.
Under Zenk's leadership, the Justice Department noted particular improvements in the jail's use of force and mental health standards during an October 2018 review.
At the time, Zenk said understaffing issues continued to plague the jail, but Martinez had implemented changes to address the problem.
A federal judge signed an order in December 2019 officially terminating federal supervision.
Zenk, who retired in January, was replaced by Warden Todd Wasmer, who came to Lake County after serving as warden at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution in Nebraska.
Wasmer previously held a variety of roles, ranging from corrections officer to assistant warden, over a 14-year period at Florida and Arizona facilities operated by CoreCivic, a private prison operator.