BY MATT DINGER mdinger@opubco.com
A federal jury Thursday found the Oklahoma County commissioners liable in the 2009 death of a jail inmate.
In its unanimous verdict, the jury awarded $175,000 in damages to the estate of Charles Holdstock.
The civil suit alleged that the jail failed to and refused to provide batteries for his pacemaker, which resulted in his death.
“I'm really, really grateful and I hope this makes a change for the better and I hope no one has to go through what my father went through,” daughter April Layton said after the verdict.
Layton carried a small bag of her father's teeth out of the courtroom which he had pulled himself in jail.
“I think the jury's judgment finds that the Oklahoma County Board of Commissioners has been derelict in providing humane medical care to pretrial detainees in the Oklahoma County jail,” estate attorney E.W. Keller said after the verdict.
In closing arguments, Keller said, “Nothing is happening and nothing is going to happen if no one is going to hold them responsible.”
Holdstock's family had also sued the jail's former health care provider, Correctional Healthcare Management of Oklahoma, Inc.
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