A psychologist who said she was retaliated against for reporting civil rights violations at the Twin Towers jail has settled her lawsuit against the county’s Department of Mental Health for $1.65 million.
In the 2018 suit, Sara Hough, a psychologist specializing in forensic evaluations, said the department discriminated and retaliated against her over several years while she worked at the jail.
Hough began working for the department in 1997. In 2011, after being transferred to a position overseeing mentally ill inmates at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility, Hough said she and some of her colleagues began to notice civil rights violations against inmates, but the complaints went ignored. In 2013, Hough reported to her supervisor that deputies were refusing to provide inmates with basic necessities such as food and clothing. She also said in the suit that an inmate at Twin Towers died after they were placed in handcuffs for ten hours, and that some inmates were not receiving medications.
“There was some pretty outrageous treatment of the inmates, which Sara reported and consistently fought,” said attorney Michael Kent, one of her lawyers.
The department denied that Hough suffered any discrimination or retaliation, but did not address any of the claims she made about the treatment of inmates in the lawsuit.
The Sheriff’s Department did not respond to a reporter’s questions about the claims in the suit but released a general statement this week: “We house and care for approximately 12,000 inmates in our seven jail facilities on any given day. The safety and security of our entire incarcerated population as well as the staff is very important to us.”
Hough’s complaints about how she was treated on the job were deemed unsubstantiated, and shortly after, she was investigated twice by the Department of Mental Health and the Office of the Inspector General for her own workplace conduct, her suit stated.
In 2013, several staff members with the…
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