JOEL SEIDEL

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

SLAYING IN JAIL WILL COST CAMDEN COUNTY

A 65-year-old Cherry Hill man's family settled a suit for $4 million. His cell mate, deranged, beat him.

By Troy Graham
Inquirer Staff Writer
May. 18, 2007

Joel Seidel, who was mentally ill, was awaiting a hospital transfer. The horrific beating death of Joel Seidel by his criminally insane cell mate forced the Camden County jail to institute a raft of changes, and prodded police departments to rethink how they handle the mentally ill.

Now the county will pay nearly $4 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed by Seidel's two grown daughters - an amount their lawyers called one of the largest ever in a case of its kind.

"The Seidel family hopes that this settlement resonates . . . so that vulnerable inmates like Joel Seidel can be protected from senseless injuries and death," their attorney Tom Kline said.

The agreement was finalized yesterday. The daughters, Devra Seidel and Sharon Clark, live outside the area and were not available for comment.

Seidel, 65 and a longtime Cherry Hill resident, was jailed in December 2003 for violating an order barring contact with his former wife and one of his daughters.

He could have been bailed out for $150, but the family wanted the court to commit Seidel, who suffered from schizophrenia, to a hospital for treatment - a process that was under way when inmate Marvin Lister killed him.

Lister, then 35, was a violent paranoid schizophrenic who had been committed to institutions since 1995. He was transferred to the jail from the Ancora Psychiatric Hospital in Winslow Township after assaulting a doctor and raping a fellow patient.

Lister and Seidel were housed together in 2 South A, the jail's 18- cell mental-health ward, despite their opposite dispositions. (Seidel's mental illness could make him a nuisance, friends and neighbors said, but the frail, former stockbroker was never violent.) During a 50-minute window on Jan. 27, 2004, Lister raped Seidel and stomped him to death, causing multiple skull fractures and broken ribs, tearing his heart, and lacerating his liver.

"They never should have put Joel Seidel in a cell with Marvin Lister," Kline said. "And when they did, they sent him to slaughter." Lister later told doctors that he had heard voices telling him to kill Seidel, and that he had thought he was acting in self-defense. "I felt as big as Shaquille O'Neal," he said, according to a doctor's report. "I'm the Tasmanian Devil."

He was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity in 2006, and he remains institutionalized.

Seidel's death was made even more tragic by a series of missteps and missed opportunities that could have prevented it.

Guards who were supposed to check the cells in 2 South A every 15 minutes left the inmates virtually unattended for 50 minutes on the morning of the beating.

An officer failed to keep a logbook, then filled in the entries after Seidel's death. Prosecutors found "inconsistencies" in the guard's after-the-fact account.

No criminal charges were filed against the guards, but three were disciplined.

At one of his two court hearings, Seidel showed up with black eyes. His condition alarmed the prosecutor enough that she twice warned jail officials about his condition.

She also took the unusual step of asking a Family Court judge to commit Seidel without a full evaluation.

At one of those hearings, Seidel had refused a voluntary 30-day commitment.

Four days before Seidel's death, the judge ordered an evaluation that could have sent Seidel to a hospital, but the process had not been completed when he was killed.

Since the death, the jail has refined its classification process to ensure that violent and nonviolent inmates are kept separate, even issuing them different-color jumpsuits.

The jail also has reduced crowding, added staff in the mental-health wing, and trained guards on dealing with the mentally ill.

The county has led a drive to keep people like Seidel out of the jail, pushing one program that trains police officers to identify mentally ill people on the street and help divert them into treatment. A pilot version of the program is running in Collingswood, and the county will host a summit next month to encourage more towns to take up the idea.

"Alternatives to incarceration must be available to officers on the street, judges and other stakeholders in the criminal-justice system," Camden County officials said in a statement yesterday. The statement also called Seidel's death "a tragedy," and said the case had been settled "to put the matter to rest for all concerned, including Mr. Seidel's family."

The statement again reiterated the changes spurred by Seidel's death. "The tragedy here is that they weren't in place before Joel Seidel was killed," Kline said.

Courier-Post Staff

EYEWITNESS DESCRIBES SEIDEL JAIL SLAYING IN '04

By ALAN GUENTHER
CAMDEN

A mentally ill inmate begged for mercy, was sexually assaulted and stomped for more than 30 minutes before guards at the Camden County Jail discovered the January 2004 killing, according to a prisoner's eyewitness account, revealed for the first time in court papers filed Friday.

Joel Seidel, 65, a frail retired stockbroker, was placed in the same cell with Marvin Lister, then 35, early on the morning of Jan. 27, 2004. Lister had a violent history and was in jail on charges he had raped another psychiatric patient. Seidel had violated a restraining order to stay away from his family and was known in his Cherry Hill neighborhood as a nuisance who sang along with Broadway show tunes played on a boom box.

Investigators questioned inmate Wylie Evans about three hours after Seidel's death. He told investigators he had a clear view into Seidel's cell. He also said he had been taking medication and was in the same mental health unit with Seidel and Lister.

"Marvin ripped his clothes off . . . I was looking at Joel's face, and he was screaming, hollering, please don't do this, and it sounded like he said don't rape me," Evans told investigators. "Marvin must have raped him for about, for about 15 minutes."

Lister stomped Seidel with his feet for more than 30 minutes, Evans told investigators. A videotape shows at least 25 minutes passed before guards discovered the body, according to attorneys for Seidel's family.

The transcript of the interview with Evans was included in a 102-page motion filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Camden by attorneys representing Seidel's estate. The Courier-Post obtained the filing through PACER, an online service that provides access to federal court records.

The motion requested the release of personnel files of the guards on duty that morning.

Lister has been charged in Seidel's killing. He is not charged with sexual assault. A spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office said he could not discuss Evans' credibility.

"I'm not going to comment on whether it's accurate or not," said Mike Cantner, a deputy chief at the prosecutor's office. "That case is still pending grand jury. Additional charges could always be lodged at grand jury."

Evans was sentenced to five years for two counts of attempted burglary, state records show. He is now at the South Woods state prison in Bridgeton.

Other inmates told the prosecutor's office that Lister had previously threatened Seidel, according to a prosecutor's report by investigator Randall C. MacNair included in the motion filed Friday.

Camden County spokesman Ken Shuttleworth declined to comment on Evans' statement or why the information was not previously released.

"We're not going to comment on anything related to those court papers," Shuttleworth said Saturday. "The truth will come out in the legal process, and that's as far as we're going to go."

But Ed Martone, a prisoners' rights advocate, said the county should have revealed what it knew about Seidel's death earlier.

"It was all part of a crime committed in a public institution. All that information should have been divulged as they had it. It's one of the reasons why people live in such jeopardy in these institutions. So much that is destructive and dangerous is kept from public view," said Martone, of the N.J. Association on Correction.

Tom Kline, attorney for Seidel's family, said Evans' statement sheds fresh insight into what Seidel suffered while in jail.

"Evans graphically depicts the horror and terror that Joel Seidel experienced in the last minutes of his life. It demonstrates the results of deliberate indifference by the authorities to his safety and the disregard of him as a human being," said Kline.

"The brutality and the obscene nature of what Evans observed clearly has a ring of authenticity, which to our understanding is corroborated by video surveillance," he said.

Kline said an attorney in his firm had viewed a videotape that showed that at least 25 minutes passed before the body was discovered.

At one point, the tape shows a guard entering the mental health unit briefly but the guard did not look into any of the cells, Kline said.

His law firm has a history of trying to work to improve conditions as part of any settlement, Kline said. In 1999, he won a $50 million settlement from SEPTA after a young boy's foot was mangled in an escalator.

" Camden County should look internally . . . (toward) shaping a jail which will truly act in the best interest of the community, to protect the most vulnerable people who came through the gates of the jail," said Kline.

In previous interviews, county officials have said they have taken steps to prevent future violence at the jail, which remains one of the most crowded in the state.

Inmates with varying criminal histories are now housed in different-colored uniforms so that guards won't place mismatched inmates in the same cells. Steps have been taken, Warden Eric Taylor has said, to improve security.

Records show that more than 1,800 prisoners are housed at the facility. It is designed to hold about 1,250.

In many cases, four prisoners sleep in cells originally designed to hold one. In those cases, two prisoners sleep in bunks and two on the floor - one near the toilet.

There were three prisoners in Seidel's cell in the mental health unit.

The court papers filed Friday also revealed details about other incidents previously reported in the Courier-Post.

The court papers included:

A copy of a letter from a mental health worker, Ellen Green, who said the jail received a phone call that Seidel had been beaten and appeared in court with black eyes two weeks before he was killed.

Mental health workers' intake sheets that evaluated both Seidel and Lister. Seidel had low scores for violence and instability. Lister had high scores for potential violence.

A sworn deposition in which Deputy Warden Marilyn Berry told Seidel's attorneys that corrections officers could not routinely check the histories of inmates.

"Most of them are not cleared to get that information," she said. "Just certain people are."

In another sworn deposition, James McIntyre, a shift supervisor in the jail, told attorneys that Lister "had a history of violent behavior towards other inmates and staff."

CLICK HERE TO VISIT JOEL'S LAWYER'S SITE ABOUT THIS CASE.

ROSALYN ATKINSON

A JAIL ORDEAL, A FAMILY'S TRAGEDY
Court and medical records raise broad questions in the death of a 25- year-old Delco jail inmate.

By Tina Moore
Inquirer Staff Writer
Posted on Tue, Mar. 14, 2006

Disoriented and scared, Rosalyn Atkinson awoke crying and asked the nurse at her bedside a prophetic question:

"Am I going to die?"

It was Oct. 18, 2002, and Atkinson was on the 11th day of an 18-day odyssey that would take her from the Delaware County jail to a local hospital, back to jail, and then, as she feared, to her death.

Officially, Atkinson, 25, died because of a fatal overdose of a single high-blood-pressure drug administered by jail infirmary staff, the Delaware County medical examiner determined.

Jail operators admitted no wrongdoing but agreed to a $100,000 settlement. For Atkinson's two children, it means each will receive $31,782.42 after legal fees and medical costs, according to a court document filed early this month.

The story of the final weeks of Atkinson's life, however, encompasses far more than a single error in a prison infirmary.

A review of court filings and medical and hospital records provided by Atkinson's family revealed:

Prison staff did not consistently provide prescribed medication, failed to monitor her vital signs, and misinterpreted Atkinson's psychotic behavior as a sign of drug abuse.

Atkinson was jailed on a probation violation three days after she was diagnosed with a severe form of lupus, a potentially fatal autoimmune disorder that can cause psychotic behavior. She was locked up because of a shoving match with another woman at Crozer-Chester Medical Center in which no one was injured. Probation officers ignored numerous pleas from her mother to give Atkinson house arrest instead of incarceration.

When Atkinson fell seriously ill, the jail transferred her to Riddle Memorial Hospital, which later sent her back to prison even though, medical records show, she was still suffering from delusions. Atkinson died about 40 hours later.

Six inmates have died from unnatural causes since 2001 at Delaware County's George W. Hill Correctional Center in Thornton. Operated by the GEO Group, it is the only privately run adult jail in the state.

In addition to Atkinson's death, two prisoners committed suicide, another was killed by a fellow inmate, and the fourth died of an overdose of heroin smuggled into the jail. A fifth died in 2005 of head and neck injuries after repeatedly throwing himself against his cell door, county officials said.

Jail Superintendent George W. Hill said in a statement that all deaths and injuries at the prison are investigated immediately "to determine if corrective action is necessary."

"Together with GEO, we strive to do our best, under sometimes difficult circumstances, to provide a safe environment for all concerned," he said.

A GEO Group spokesman said, "We have implemented training following... Ms. Atkinson's death."

Death rates in suburban jails vary from 3 per 1,000 inmates in Delaware County since 2001 to fewer than 1 per 1,000 in Montgomery County. Data for 2000 from Delaware County were unavailable.

Born and raised in Chester, Atkinson had difficulty finding and keeping a job.

"It wasn't always easy," her mother, Joyce Atkinson, said recently as she wore a sweatshirt bearing the image of Rosalyn, "but we had each other to lean on."

Atkinson worked a variety of low-paying positions at retail outlets. By the time she was 25, she had two daughters, Cye'Ayshia, now 8, and Ro'Nayshia, now 10, and was on public assistance.

She was also in trouble with the law.

On Sept. 9, 2002, Atkinson was at Crozer-Chester Medical Center to be treated for recurring severe headaches. There, she got into a shoving match with a hospital employee, Joi Tucker. Each filed a criminal complaint against the other. The relatively minor incident would have far-ranging repercussions for Atkinson, because she was still on probation from a 1997 altercation in which she had sliced Tucker's face during an argument over a man.

Atkinson returned to Crozer-Chester on Sept. 23, suffering from shortness of breath, headaches and vomiting.

Doctors ran a laundry list of tests, and on Oct. 5, she was discharged with a diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus, the most severe form of the disease.

The autoimmune disease - most common among African American women - causes a person's immune system to attack its own tissues and may have caused Atkinson's hypertension. Crozer-Chester doctors prescribed a series of drugs, including steroids and powerful blood- pressure medicine.

Then on Oct. 8, Atkinson was arrested at her mother's home.

Brawling with Tucker a month earlier had violated the terms of her probation. Her mother's pleas to probation and police officers that her daughter was too ill to be jailed went unheeded.

Once Atkinson was in the jail, her health quickly deteriorated, and her behavior became more and more erratic. Prison medical records documented her condition.

"Behavior bizarre - waits at cell door with belongings ready to leave," a jail employee wrote Oct. 11, Atkinson's fourth day in jail. "Inappropriate responses to questions. Constantly needs redirection."

The confusion and odd behavior were likely a symptom of Atkinson's lupus, said a doctor who reviewed Atkinson's medical records at The Inquirer's request.

About 30 percent of lupus patients can have neurological or psychiatric disease, including psychosis, said Dr. Joan M. Von Feldt, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Health System's Division of Rheumatology.

A severe case, like Atkinson's, makes "neuro-psychiatric lupus" more likely and should have been "the first thing" Atkinson's doctors considered, Von Feldt said.

Instead, Atkinson ended up undergoing a detoxification regime after a prison psychiatrist reported that on Oct. 11, Atkinson had "admitted to using marijuana laced with PCP." But tests Oct. 15 showed no illegal drugs in her urine.

For at least two days, Oct. 13 and 14, she took no prescribed medication. Prison records say she "refused medication," which included steroids and two hypertension drugs to control her blood pressure, Verapamil and beta blockers. Infirmary documents show that medical staff had not taken her blood pressure or other vital signs Oct. 12-14.

By Oct. 14, her seventh day in jail, Atkinson was neither eating nor drinking.

That evening, infirmary physician Victoria Gessner increased Atkinson's steroid dosage. But by early Oct. 15, Atkinson was naked, crying and screaming in her cell, nurse Susan Pentney wrote.

Contacted at her home, Pentney would not comment directly on medical treatment at the jail but said: "I'm really anti accusing doctors and pointing fingers. I mean, the woman was in jail. You don't expect to get the best treatment in jail."

On the outside, Atkinson's family was fighting for her release. Her mother and sister contacted the Pennsylvania Prison Society, the NAACP, and their state representative.

Gwendolyn Atkinson, her sister, pleaded with a probation supervisor to give her sibling house arrest until a court hearing could be held.

"Explained to her that we were getting phone calls stating Rosalyn was given incorrect medication, she had been strapped to a bed with no clothes on since Friday and she had been throwing feces around and urinating on herself," Gwendolyn wrote in a journal she kept during the events.

Nancy Gray, deputy director of adult probation and parole, said the county has no written policy for determining when a person is jailed for a parole violation versus house arrest. Each decision is made by the individual probation officer, she said. But she noted that Atkinson was accused of assaulting a woman she had been convicted of assaulting five years earlier. "We had a person victimizing a victim," she said.

National standards written by the American Correctional Association and adopted by Pennsylvania include nothing about handling ill prisoners, but do state that "alternatives" to bail revocation and incarceration "are considered to the extent that public safety is not endangered."

Bill McDevitt, director of the Bureau of Probation Services for the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, said those standards, which counties must also meet to receive state aid, required that Atkinson receive a hearing on the new charge - the shoving match with Tucker - within 14 days of her arrest.

By Oct. 14, Atkinson had been in jail for seven of those 14 days, and her condition was worsening. The waste products in her blood soared to a level that indicated her kidneys were functioning at only about 10 percent efficiency.

She was "crying, screaming, hysterically at times, dancing, laughing at other times," according to infirmary records.

The following day, Gessner upped her dosage of Prednisone, records show. The steroid is used to treat lupus flares. The same day, the infirmary staff transferred her to Riddle Memorial Hospital.

Atkinson arrived dehydrated with dangerously high blood pressure, hospital records show. She was put on intravenous steroids and hypertension medication. She was handcuffed and guarded by two correctional officers, as was hospital and prison policy.

One physician, Christine Meyer, wrote that Atkinson's prescribed medications, including Prednisone, "apparently were not continued at her usual doses" at the jail.

After three days of treatment with intravenous steroids, Atkinson awoke the morning of Oct. 18 still confused about her surroundings but lucid enough to ask whether or not she was going to die.

Atkinson's family turned to lawyer John Nails.

On Oct. 21, 13 days after she was arrested, Atkinson had not yet appeared in court. The same day, Nails, the lawyer retained by her mother, filed a motion for an emergency hearing. A judge ordered that it be held within three days of her release from Riddle.

There, Atkinson remained delusional, and at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 23, the bedridden woman asked a nurse: "How did I get stuck in the elevator?"

Nevertheless, Atkinson was sent back to jail that evening. Riddle Memorial Hospital refused to discuss Atkinson's treatment, citing patient-confidentiality rules.

Meyer, the physician who signed her discharge papers at Riddle, declined to discuss Atkinson's treatment. "I'm not going to comment at all on that case," she said last month.

Infirmary physician Gessner, who no longer works at the jail, said in a recent interview that Atkinson "came back from the hospital exactly as she left."

At jail, a prison nurse wrote on the same night that Atkinson was "still delusional" and "crying, banging on window, talking to self."

The following day, she was again "acting bizarre" and "speaking to persons not present," another nurse wrote. Atkinson did not sleep or eat that night.

The next morning, Atkinson's blood pressure plummeted. Worried jail nurses consulted Gessner by phone.

At 9 a.m., infirmary records show, Atkinson was given the hypertension drug Verapamil, which is used to treat a fast heart rate. The intravenous medication was prescribed in the hospital and approved by Gessner.

About 9:50 a.m., Atkinson's eyes stopped reacting to light, and prison nurse Patrick Teesdale ordered a jail employee to call 911.

Ambulance personnel and Teesdale initiated CPR, but Atkinson was already dead.

Reached at his home in Sewell, N.J., Teesdale said that he remembered the case well and that it had disturbed him deeply. He refused to comment further.

In notes Gessner wrote the day Atkinson died, she said potential causes were "massive myocardial infarction," or a heart attack. She also noted that the death could have been hastened by a "high dose" of the Verapamil and beta blocker. Both drugs reduce blood pressure, and medical literature says they can be dangerous if combined.

In recent interviews, Medical Examiner Frederic Hellman, while citing a relatively low overdose of Verapamil as the cause, added that combining it with the blood-pressure drug already in Atkinson's system could have contributed to her death.

Gessner defended the medical care Atkinson received.

"During my tenure there, her medical care was superior to any medical care she would have received in the community," Gessner said.

GEO Group spokesman Pablo Paez would not detail the new training that was ordered after Atkinson's death. He said the case was "settled without any admission of wrongdoing on behalf on medical staff or the administration of the facility."

Lawyer Jon Auritt of Media, who took Joyce Atkinson's case, explained the modest settlement this way in a court document filed earlier this month:

"Considering the fatal irreversibility of her illness at the time she entered the prison, it is unlikely, had decedent not passed away at the prison, any significant income would have been earned... ."

Damage awards are based, in part, on the victim's potential future earnings.

Auritt said that physicians consulted had determined that Atkinson would have died anyway, "just maybe not as soon" had she not been in jail.

Meanwhile, the county is seeking a new jail operator. Prison Board officials have said GEO Group's management of the prison had nothing to do with the decision to seek bids.

One circumstance surrounding her daughter's death that still nags at Joyce Atkinson is how jail officials notified her.

"They called me on the phone," she said recently. "They didn't even come to my house and tell me. They came here to arrest her - they could have come and told me she was dead."

A Timeline in the Atkinson Case

Sept. 9, 2002 - Rosalyn Atkinson gets into a shoving match with Joi Tucker, whom she had fought with five years earlier.

Sept. 23, 2002 - Atkinson, dehydrated and vomiting, goes to the emergency room at the Crozer-Chester Medical Center.

Oct. 5, 2002 - Doctors determine that Atkinson is suffering from lupus erythematosus, a severe form of the chronic illness. She is sent home with a prescription for medications to ease her symptoms.

Oct. 8 - Sheriff's deputies alerted to the fight with Tucker arrest Atkinson on a probation violation and take her to Delaware County's jail.

Oct. 10 - The jail infirmary, aware of her lupus, begins medicating Atkinson.

Oct. 11 - Infirmary nurses note that Atkinson's behavior is "bizarre." A jail psychologist notes that Atkinson told him she had smoked "wet," a potent mixture of marijuana and PCP.

Oct. 12-14 - Infirmary nurses note that Atkinson refused to have her vitals taken and wouldn't take her medication.

Oct. 15 - A nurse's notes regarding Atkinson at 1 a.m. state that "inappropriate, bizarre, behavior continues. Thinking disorganized. No clothing."

By 8 a.m., a nurse writes that Atkinson is "lying in a fetal position, quiet."

At 2:40 p.m., she is transported to Riddle Memorial Hospital with dehydration and hypertension.

Oct. 15 - Joyce and Gwendolyn Atkinson, her mother and sister, call the Delaware County Office of Adult Probation and Parole. They explain her medical condition and ask the department to put Atkinson on home monitoring. They are unaware that she has been taken to the hospital.

Oct. 15 - At Riddle, doctors treat Atkinson with steroids and anti- hypertension medications. Several days of intravenous Solu-Medrol therapy improve her condition "drastically," Dr. Christine Meyer writes.

Oct. 15 - Atkinson is tested for illegal drugs at Riddle Memorial Hospital. The results come back negative for both phencyclidine (PCP) and marijuana.

Oct. 20 - At 4 p.m., Atkinson is "tearful" that she can't have visitors at Riddle Memorial Hospital.

Oct. 21 - Chester lawyer John W. Nails files a motion to get Atkinson released from jail.

Oct. 22 - Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia Jenkins rules that the district attorney should show cause for holding Atkinson within three days of her return to jail.

Oct. 23 - The hospital sends Atkinson back to jail at 6:30 p.m. She is placed in the infirmary.

Oct. 24 - Atkinson is "acting bizarre speaking to persons not present," a prison infirmary nurse notes.

Oct. 25 - At 8:30 a.m., Atkinson's blood pressure plummets to 80/42. Normal blood pressure is usually around 120/80.

By 9:50 a.m., her pupils are fixed and not reacting to light.

About 9:55 a.m., she is taken to ambulance entrance and has a weak pulse and slow, deep respiration. Her breathing ceased as a nurse made his report to ambulance personnel, nurse's notes show.

She is pronounced dead at Riddle Memorial Hospital an hour later.

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