Man illegally detained in Florida jail was given used mask and caught COVID, lawsuit says

A man booked in a Florida county jail posted $100 bail and was illegally detained for more than 12 hours overnight, a federal lawsuit says. Five days later, he said he ended up in the emergency room.

Neville Brooks’ bail was set at a lower than typical amount due to concerns he could catch COVID-19 if “he were not promptly released” from Marion County Jail in Ocala, about 80 miles northwest of Orlando, according to the lawsuit. His detainment took place during the early months of the pandemic in August 2020.

During his booking, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office gave him a discolored, cloth mask — revealing it was used and not cleaned properly, a complaint filed in January says.

Brooks, 59, got infected with the coronavirus during his stay in jail and severe symptoms sent him to a hospital’s emergency room where he tested positive, according to the complaint. There, he said he was diagnosed with COVID-19 and bilateral pneumonia.

Now the Marion County Sheriff’s Office will pay Brooks $150,000 in damages to settle the lawsuit after authorities wrongfully suspected he was in the U.S. illegally, according to a March news release from the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which filed the lawsuit on Brooks’ behalf.

The sheriff’s office kept him detained longer than needed because he was born in Jamaica and referred him to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the lawsuit, which named Sheriff Billy Woods and Corporal Jason Lester as defendants.

ICE ultimately told the sheriff’s office that Brooks had a green card, so there was no reason for his extended detainment and he wasn’t deportable, the complaint says.

“I filed this lawsuit because I felt a responsibility to help make sure the Sheriff’s Office does not treat anyone else the way they treated me,” Brooks said in a statement.

Timothy McCourt, an attorney for the sheriff’s office, told McClatchy News in a statement that “Brooks not being released when he posted his bond was not due to our policies and procedures, but rather was the result of an employee overlooking an email from ICE that they did not wish to take action against Mr. Brooks.”

More on the case

In Marion County, authorities can only detain a person for ICE if the agency has an active detention request for the individual, the complaint notes.

Brooks was born in Jamaica and legally lives in Florida, where he works as a certified nursing assistant and is pursuing a nursing degree, according to the complaint.

The evening of Aug. 11, 2020, he was accused of battery and arrested by Ocala police, but the charge against him was soon dropped, the complaint says. The charge was dismissed because a victim didn’t want him to be prosecuted, McCourt told McClatchy News.

After Brooks was booked in jail around 12 a.m. on Aug. 12, his family posted bond for him around 11:41 a.m., the complaint says. About five hours later, the Sheriff’s Office sent a fax to ICE asking if the agency had a detention request for him, according to the complaint.

At around 8:10 p.m., Lester emailed ICE and said Brooks “posted bond and is ready” for the agency even though “ICE never issued a detainer, administrative warrant, or any other request or authorization to the Sheriff to detain Mr. Brooks,” the complaint says.

Brooks wouldn’t be released until 8:22 a.m. on Aug. 13 after an ICE official responded via email alerting the sheriff’s office that they didn’t want to detain Brooks, according to the complaint and the sheriff’s office’s attorney.

“Had our policies and procedures been followed, Mr. Brooks would have been released when his bond was posted,” McCourt said.

Brooks’ COVID infection

The lawsuit argues Brooks’ extended time in jail exposed him to COVID-19 — which he was at high-risk for severe complications due to having blood pressure and a BMI over 30 — and that he hadn’t been infected prior to his booking.

Brooks was placed in the jail’s crowded, high-risk “general population area” where roughly 50 people were detained, the complaint notes.

After Brooks was released, he began feeling fatigued and weak in his limbs, had a fever and a loss of appetite, according to the complaint.

He arrived at an emergency room for treatment on Aug. 18 when he was told he had both COVID-19 and pneumonia, the complaint says.

Pneumonia is a possible health consequence of a COVID-19 infection.

Upon Brooks’ release from the ER, he quarantined, couldn’t work for roughly two weeks and was coughing for months after his COVID-19 infection went away, according to the complaint.

The $150,000 he’s been awarded is going toward his attorney fees and other costs, according to the ACLU. The Southern Poverty Law Center and Zuckerman Spaeder LLP also represented Brooks in the case.

Since Brooks’ detainment, the sheriff’s office has made changes to its policies, Sheriff Woods told McClatchy News in a statement.

“We continue to refer inmates to ICE, except now we are doing that more efficiently using automated systems, instead of relying on sending faxes,” Woods said. “Our updated policies were developed by my legal team in consultation with ICE to ensure that we do everything we can to help enforce immigration law while also ensuring we act entirely within the bounds of the Constitution.”

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