Stephen Slevin was never convicted of a crime. But for two years, he languished in a New Mexico jail cell, going month after month without showers or outdoor recreation or human contact.
His nails grew so long that they curled. Refused medication and denied access to a dentist, he says he was forced to pull his own tooth.
The New Mexico man has been awarded $22 million by a federal jury in Santa Fe in one of the largest prisoner-rights judgments ever, his lawyer said yesterday.
The ordeal began when Slevin was arrested in August 2005 for allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol. But he never had a trial. Instead, he was thrown into a cell in New Mexico’s Dona Ana County Jail, and forgotten about.
“[Jail guards were] walking by me every day, watching me deteriorate,” Slevin told KOB.com after Tuesday’s jury verdict. “Day after day after day, they did nothing, nothing at all, to get me any help.”
Slevin, 58, alleges county jail officials denied him access to his depression medication. He lost a significant amount of weight from malnutrition and suffered from fungal infections as his nails grew during his stay in a 6-by-11-foot cell, said his attorney, Matthew Coyte.
“They left him long enough where he fell into a delirium and began to decay, essentially, as a human being,” Coyte said.
The lawyer believes Slevin was put in solitary confinement because he was suffering from depression and someone checked a box on a form indicating he was suicidal. But he said Slevin never received a visit from any mental health professional — or any other kind of medical treatment.
During his confinement, Slevin said he was forced to pull out his own tooth despite his pleas for dental treatment.
“He rocked it (the tooth) back and forth over a period of eight hours before he was able to pull it out of his mouth,” Coyte said.
Slevin said he still can’t understand why he was treated so callously.
“Why they did what they did, I have no idea,” he said.
Slevin did receive an arraignment and was sent to a mental health facility about a year into his imprisonment. But he was bounced back to the county jail just a few weeks later.
Although he was never convicted of a crime or even brought to trial, he was not released until June 2007. A district judge dismissed the drunken driving charge.
A photograph of Slevin taken during his confinement shows him dirty and disheveled, with a long, unkempt beard and lank, unwashed hair.
Coyte said the photo, when compared with others taken prior to Slevin’s arrest, serves as disturbing evidence of his mistreatment.
“That picture helped our case,” he said. “If you looked as bad as that guy looked, no human being would not think, ‘This person needs help.’”
Coyte said his client suffers from post-traumatic stress as an after-effect of the confinement and is also now battling lung cancer.
Dona Ana County spokesman Jess Williams said the county is filing an appeal. He said he would not comment on “personnel issues” and declined to comment on whether any county jail officials had been fired over Slevin’s treatment.
Slevin will not receive any of the money until after an appeal.
“This has never been about the money,” Slevin told KOB. “I’ve always wanted this to be a statement.
I wanted people to know that the people at the Dona Ana County Jail are doing things like this to people and getting away with it.”
Coyte said he believes other inmates at the Dona Ana County Jail have suffered under similarly inhumane conditions.
“This treatment was a matter of routine there,” he said. “But this is happening all over the country.”
Mara.Gay@thedaily.com
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Photo: Dona Ana County Sheriff's Department/AP
Stephen Slevin's mugshot following his arrest in August 2005, left. After two years in solitary confinement, he became malnourished and disheveled.