Ohio Inmate wins $404,000 award in civil rights case against Ohio prison officers—Cincinnati Enquirer
A jury in a federal civil rights case awarded $404,000 to Tommy Meadows after state prison staff took him to the floor, pepper sprayed him while handcuffed in a strip cell and put him in solitary confinement for two years.
Early in the case, the state offered to settle it for $5,000, according to court filings.
“Inmates rarely have counsel in these sorts of cases. These cases rarely go to trial. And inmates almost never win,” said Meadows’ attorney Emmett Robinson. “We were told that this was one of the most significant civil-rights jury cases in the Southern District of Ohio in many years.” . . .
In the months following the incident, Meadows and his then fiancé tried to file a grievance with prison officials. At the end of July 2019, as Meadows finally had the ability to file a grievance, Corrections Officer Kenneth Plowman filed a conduct report on Meadows.
Plowman said he overheard Meadows and another prisoner threatening to kill a corrections officer. Robinson said his client then spent two years in solitary confinement.
The state argued that there was no connection between Plowman’s report and the incident at the chow hall.
Meadows’ attorney Peter Pattakos dismisses that argument, saying that the case demonstrates a culture in which officers act with impunity.
“It’s absurd,” said Pattakos. “This was just an airtight case as far as these things go.”
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