The last time Lesley Overfield went to see her son in prison, everything had changed.
He visited the El Dorado County Jail about every two weeks, and when I had seen him previously, he was fine, walking, talking, and appearing healthy.
But on April 22, when she visited her 38-year-old HIV-positive son at the facility near Lake Tahoe and the Nevada border, he was completely different.
Nicholas Overfield was in a wheelchair. He couldn't pick up the phone to talk to his mother behind the glass in the visiting room. He then leaned forward and rested his head on the table. The two never spoke on that visit.
Nicholas Overfield died from not receiving necessary HIV medications while in custody, a lawsuit claims.
(Open Country Family)
Two months later, he died from a viral infection, varicella-zoster virus encephalitis, which is among the conditions associated with AIDS, according to his family's attorney, Ty Clarke. Medical records show that Overfield was not administered his HIV antiretroviral medications while he was in jail. Now, Lesley Overfield is suing over the death of her son.
“I am very disappointed, very angry. “I would like justice to be done for my son,” she said. saying. “I would like them to be held accountable for their actions. Why did my son stay in jail for two weeks without anyone taking care of the matter?
Nicholas Overfield was arrested in February 2022 after failing to appear for a court date, according to the lawsuit his mother filed in federal court in the Eastern District of California last week. Clarke did not provide information about Overfield's underlying criminal case.
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When he was arrested, Overfield and his mother made sure to give police officers his medication and informed them of his HIV-positive status so he could continue receiving treatment in jail.
But he never got the medications he needed, according to the lawsuit.
Instead, the jail did not provide him with medication during the entire time he was detained, his attorney said. During previous visits with his mother, Overfield had not mentioned that he was not receiving his medication, he said.
The day after visiting her son, Lesley Overfield spoke by phone with a prison nurse about his condition. That same day, he was taken to a local hospital for medical treatment, according to the lawsuit.
“Defendants were unaware or, worse yet, unaware of the seriousness of Nick's overall health and medical condition until his mother forced them to confront those things,” the lawsuit reads.
A hospital nurse spoke to a prison nurse.
“[Overfield] “He has not had access to his HIV medication since he was detained in February,” the nurse wrote in medical records reviewed by The Times.
After a stint in hospital, he was moved to hospice and died in June 2022.
“In a tragic and inevitable turn of events, Nick's health had deteriorated at an alarming rate during and as a result of his detention in the El Dorado County Jail,” Clarke wrote in the lawsuit. “Even though Nick was prescribed HIV medication and even though he had been told [by] When Nick was arrested, he said he needed his HIV medication to keep his HIV under control, the defendants did not provide Nick with his HIV medication. As a direct and immediate result, Nick's HIV turned into AIDS.”
Nicholas Overfield with his young son. During his time in prison, Overfield never received crucial medications and subsequently died, according to a lawsuit.
(Open Country Family)
The lawsuit is filed against El Dorado County and Wellpath Community Care, a company that contracts with governments to provide medical treatment in correctional facilities. Wellpath is the largest provider of prison healthcare in the country, according to the Department of Justice.
Clarke claimed the company had a history of providing inadequate care to inmates in correctional settings.
A 2021 investigation by the Department of Justice into the San Luis Obispo County Jail, where Wellpath provides health care services, found that the facility had failed to provide HIV antiretroviral medications to certain patients.
“Medications for prisoners with HIV are often delayed or not provided throughout the prisoner's incarceration, which can lead to treatment failure by creating drug resistance or failing to keep viral loads at an undetectable level,” Justice Department lawyers wrote in the report.
The report found that the jail had not “provided constitutionally adequate medical care to prisoners.”
The company has been investigated by the Justice Department in numerous states, and a Reuters investigation found that inmates held in jails where the private equity firm operated were more likely to die than in county-controlled jails.
Wellpath had no immediate comment on Overfield's death. The El Dorado County Sheriff's Office also did not respond to the Times' request for comment.
