$47 mil ordered in death of inmate

Sept. 21, 2006, 4:18PM
Family of inmate awarded $47.5 million in his death


Associated Press

RAYMONDVILLE ?- Jurors ordered a private prison operator and its warden to pay $47.5 million to the family of a man beaten to death by fellow inmates four days before finishing his drug sentence.

"The evidence was disturbing. It showed a failure to properly search, inadequate staffing and improper response," said Ron Rodriguez, an attorney for Gregorio De La Rosa's family.

De La Rosa was serving a six-month sentence in 2001 when two inmates struck him with padlocks stuffed into socks in the prison yard. His family claimed in a lawsuit that the death was avoidable. Inmates had used padlocks as weapons before, so it was foreseeable that they would again, the suit claimed.

"Defendants had a pattern and practice of allowing beatings and fights between inmates for money, and a tradition of payback, whereby prisoners were beaten just before their release," the family's suit said.

It was unclear if The Geo Group Inc., a spinoff of the Florida-based Wackenhut Corrections Corp. that runs the facility, planned to appeal Friday's verdict.

The inmates accused in De La Rosa's death, Daniel Sanchez and Pedro de Jesus Equia, were charged with murder and pleaded guilty to lesser charges. They received 20-year sentences.