Friday, December 17, 1999
Lucasville payments held up by state
BY ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
The Associated Press
COLUMBUS — The scheduled release Thursday of a plan to disburse $2.4 million to inmates hurt in the 1993 Lucasville prison riot has not stopped Attorney General Betty Montgomery's decision to challenge hundreds of inmate claims.
Michael Barrett, a Cincinnati lawyer appointed to administer the settlement, was to release his plan Thursday on claims filed by 1,050 inmates after the 11-day uprising at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville in which nine inmates and one guard died.
Bradley Davis Barbin, Ms. Montgomery's director of criminal justice services, said the state will look closely at each decision.
“We said no inmate gets any money unless they can prove their injury, and that's what this process is expected to accomplish,” Mr. Barbin said Thursday. “If it doesn't, we'll continue to appeal up the line until we feel it's appropriate.”
Four types of riot-related claims were permitted in the settlement reached in January 1997: those filed by the estates of inmates who were killed, by inmates injured in the rioting, by inmates who had personal property damaged and by inmates who suffered psychological trauma.
Mr. Barbin said he expects most of the $2.4 million to be paid to the estates of those who died. An additional $1.7 million won from the state goes to inmates' lawyers.
The state has challenged the claims of 837 prisoners, including all 541 claims from inmates who said they suffered psychological damage.
The latter are the claims “we'll take the closest look at and the most jaundiced look at,” Mr. Barbin said. “If someone says, "I have nightmares,' the proof is very difficult.”
Inmates and the state both can either accept a decision or reject and appeal it. The first appeal goes to a U.S. magistrate, the second and last to a U.S. district judge.
If Mr. Barrett “denies a vast majority of claims, I'm sure we'll see a lot of inmate appeals,” said Alphonse Gerhardstein, a Cincinnati lawyer representing the inmates. “If he grants the vast majority, I'm sure we'll see a lot of state appeals.”
As for the state's dispute of psychological damage, “All I can say is, the claims administrator is required to document the basis for his decision,” Mr. Gerhardstein said.
Mr. Barrett could not be reached for comment.
The attorney general's office is also pressing to make sure inmates who receive settlement money repay money owed the state's Victims of Crime Compensation program. At least 84 inmates owe $750,000 as restitution for the crimes they committed.
The concern is that transferring the funds would allow inmates to avoid paying their debts, Mr. Barbin said.
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