CHARLOTTE AMALIE — A new lawsuit accuses staff at the St. Thomas jail of leaving a 36-year-old man to die in a cell after denying him basic medical care, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court.
The man, Craig Vanausdal, was arrested at King Airport on May 4, 2022, after U.S. Customs and Border Protection found a warrant for his arrest in Pennsylvania.
Days later, the Bureau of Corrections announced that a 36-year-old man was found dead at the jail on May 16, but refused to identify him by name, citing an internal investigation.
The man “came into BOC custody with a life-threatening illness. There were no obvious signs of foul play,” according to a news release issued at the time by Bureau spokesman Kyza Callwood.
“The Bureau’s medical and security staff called 911 when the detainee began showing signs of distress,” according to the news release, and the man was pronounced dead at approximately 4:20 a.m.
The news release did not identify the detainee’s disease or say why he was not hospitalized for the life-threatening illness, rather than being jailed. The Bureau did not say when the detainee was arrested or how long he had been jailed.
A lawsuit filed Saturday identifies the man as Vanausdal, and accuses Bureau staff of failing to provide him medication and treatment for hemophilia, a disorder that prevents blood from clotting properly.
Attorney John Fischer filed the 38-page lawsuit on behalf of Vanausdal’s estate representative, Tom Cariveau. Defendants named in the lawsuit include Bureau of Corrections Director Wynnie Testamark, the Bureau’s Medical Director Linda Callwood, nurse Welma Freeman-Walter, warden Ishmael Smittie, and Gov. Albert Bryan Jr.
According to the complaint, Vanausdal was trying to return home on May 4, 2022, when he was arrested on an outstanding warrant from an alleged 2004 marijuana arrest in Pennsylvania.
While being booked into jail, Vanausdal alerted staff that he was a hemophiliac and could die without his medication.
The medication Vanausdal had on him had expired, and Callwood “made the decision to discard the lifesaving medication, despite not having any medication available on the island as a substitute,” according to the lawsuit.
Without medication, Vanausdal suffered from severe symptoms like “deep bruising, joint pain and swelling, unexplained and uncontrolled bleeding, while experiencing blood in both his urine and stool, alone and scared for his life in the St. Thomas Jail cell,” according to the lawsuit.
Vanausdal “went over 12 days without his medication before he was tragically found dead in his cell on May 16, 2022,” according to the lawsuit.
Nurse Freeman-Walter examined Vanausdal on May 9 when he complained of swelling and pain in his ankle, “indicative of bleeding,” and “he should have been taken to the Emergency Department at the nearby hospital,” according to the lawsuit.
Callwood spoke on the phone with Vanausdal’s girlfriend and his doctor on May 9, and contacted a local pharmacy, but the injectable medication “can only be obtained from a special pharmacy,” according to the lawsuit. Callwood contacted a pharmacy that had mailed Vanausdal a 12-dose supply of medication to his home address on May 3.
At that point, Callwood was aware that Vanausdal had his last dose of medication on May 2, “and was not capable of providing it to him, now a week later,” according to the lawsuit.
Callwood told the girlfriend to send Vanausdal’s medication through the mail, and Vanausdal continued to complain of pain and bleeding. Staff scheduled an appointment at Caribbean Hematology & Oncology Center, but there were not enough corrections staff available to take him there, according to the lawsuit.
Callwood spoke to a hematologist who advised her that treatment for Vanausdal “was not available on island,” and Callwood spoke with Pennsylvania authorities on May 12, advising that he needed to be transferred immediately, according to the lawsuit.
Meanwhile, Vanausdal’s girlfriend was unable to cover the $500 cost to ship the medication, and efforts to FedEx the medication directly from the pharmacy were not successful, according to the lawsuit.
On May 13, Assistant Virgin Islands Attorney General Ebette Fortune filed an emergency motion to dismiss the charges against Vanausdal in a last-ditch effort to save his life.
She attached an email from Callwood, alerting the Bureau and both the prosecution and defense that Vanausdal was bleeding “into his ankle and elbow” because of his untreated hemophilia.
“It would be unfortunate if Mr. Vanausdal bled into brain [sic] which will be life threatening and require him to be air lifted to the mainland,” Callwood wrote in the email.
Because efforts to obtain his medication had failed, Callwood asked that he be allowed to travel for medical treatment immediately.
“Please assist the Virgin Islands Bureau of Corrections in the transfer of Mr. Vanuasdal to the mainland before it is too late,” Callwood wrote in the May 13 email.
While Fortune filed the emergency motion the same day, V.I. Superior Court Judge Sigrid Tejo did not issue a ruling, and Vanausdal remained behind bars as his condition deteriorated.
He continued to complain of pain and bleeding, but jail staff did not take him to the emergency room, “and they simply did nothing, in direct contradiction of his constitution right to proper medical care,” according to the lawsuit.
On May 15, Vanausdal was in so much pain, he was only able to walk with crutches.
“Despite the continuing deterioration of his symptoms, the lack of provision of his life-saving medication and the risk of death, Mr. Vanausdal was never taken to the hospital for proper workup and potentially life flight off island, which is well within the purview of the medical staff of the VI BOC,” according to the lawsuit.
Just before 4 a.m. on May 16, jail staff called Emergency Medical Technicians, who responded and found Vanausdal “shirtless on the floor, unresponsive to any stimulus, apneic, pulseless, and cold to the touch with fixated pupils,” according to the lawsuit.
He was pronounced dead at the scene, and two correctional officers identified as “John Doe 1 and 2” in the lawsuit told EMTs that they were with Vanausdal 30 minutes prior to their arrival, and he was “conscious and alert,” and slowly became unresponsive.
The court finally dismissed the charges against Vanausdal on May 20, four days after his death.
For the 12 days between May 4 — 16, 2022, jail staff failed to provide medication and treatment to Vanausdal, “which resulted in his tragic, untimely death,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit’s claims include gross negligence, deliberate indifference, and civil rights violations, and the complaint cites the jail’s federal oversight under a consent decree that has been ongoing since 1994.
A 2013 settlement agreement mandated specific reforms at the jail, which has long struggled to provide constitutional conditions of confinement, and the lawsuit claims that the jail is still failing to provide basic medical care to detainees awaiting trial.
The jail will not be released from monitoring until officials can prove detainees are being provided with adequate care.
At a hearing on April 30, Callwood testified that she is on call around the clock and filling multiple roles, and is responsible for overseeing both the jail and prison.
Callwood said nursing staff are in place to ensure detainees’ health needs are met, and two additional medical staff members have been hired since February. But in response to questions from Maria Morris, Senior Staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Prison Project, Callwood acknowledged that vacancies remain in positions required by the settlement agreement.
The settlement also requires jail physicians to conduct peer reviews, but Callwood said there has been no one else in place to review her work. In addition, a staffing plan called for in the agreement has not been conducted.
Prior to Vanausdal’s death, a 55-year-old man was found dead in September 2021 at the St. Croix prison, which is under a separate consent decree. 76-year-old detainee Edwin Turnbull was found dead at the St. Thomas jail on Nov. 9, 2020, and 48-year-old inmate James Laudat was found dead at the St. Croix prison on Nov. 25, 2019, three months after a judge ordered him to be transferred to a secure psychiatric facility.
Bureau officials have refused to release the cause and manner of death for any of the men found dead in Bureau custody, but said there were no signs of foul play.
By SUZANNE CARLSON/V.I. Daily News