Family of inmate who died of dehydration after prison guards denied him water for SEVEN days because he flooded his jail cell, gets $7million payout

Milwaukee County paid nearly $7 million to settle a lawsuit from the family of a man who died from dehydration in what their attorney slammed as torture.

Attorneys for 38-year-old Terrill Thomas called the settlement one of the largest ever in Wisconsin for a jail death.

Tuesday was the first time they publicly announced the settlement, but it was finalized in March. The lawsuit was dismissed earlier this month.

'The size of the settlement I believe reflected the tremendous pain and suffering that Mr. Thomas endured for days,' said James End, a Milwaukee attorney who represented Thomas' family.

The county's attorney, Margaret Daun, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Armor Correctional Health Services, Inc., a Florida-based company who was in charge of inmate care at the time of Thomas' death, was working on a statement in response to the settlement. The company was also named in the lawsuit .

Thomas' family has said he was having a mental breakdown when police arrested him April 14, 2016, for shooting a man in front of his parents' house and later firing a gun inside a casino.

Thomas had bipolar disorder and was unable to be an advocate for himself in the jail or take his prescribed medication. 

At the jail, Thomas had water to his cell shut off as punishment because he had flooded his previous cell by stuffing a mattress in the toilet. 

Prosecutors described how jail lieutenant, Kashka Meadors, told correctional officer, James Ramsey-Guy, to turn off the water supply to Thomas's new cell. 

Thomas was moved to an isolation cell after the flooding.

He was not given any drinks with his food and the water was never turned back on. He died a week later. 

He lost 34 pounds, or 10 percent of his body weight, during the week he was deprived of water, according to the lawsuit.

Erik Heipt, a Seattle-based attorney who also represented Thomas' family, said the county could've ended up paying more at a jury trial.

'The amount of the settlement reflects the callous disregard for Terrill Thomas's life and the magnitude of his pain and suffering,' he said. 

'What happened to him was a form of torture,' Heipt said to the New York Times. 'This sort of atrocity should never happen at an American jail. There's no excuse for it.' 

Heipt said he hoped it would send a message to jail operators that 'if you ignore the Constitution and act with deliberate indifference to the lives of inmates, there will be a price to pay.' 

The settlement, Heipt said, 'gives me hope some positive change will come about from this.' 

Heipt said the settlement money will be split among Thomas' six children, including four minors.

The settlement, reached in the Eastern District of Wisconsin, ends a federal civil rights lawsuit by Thomas's estate and a separate federal suit filed by one of his children. 

Milwaukee prosecutors filed criminal charges against three jail staffers who were involved in shutting off Thomas' water or who lied to police during the subsequent investigation.

In May 2017, a jury recommended that prosecutors charge seven jail employees with felony abuse. Four of the employees have not been charged.  

Meadors pleaded no contest last year to a felony charge of prisoner abuse and was sentenced to 60 days in prison. 

Ramsey-Guy was sentenced in March to 30 days in prison on a charge of abusing a resident of a penal facility, a felony.