Suit settled over jail inmate’s death

Jace Radke

Monday, May 10, 2004 | 9:21 a.m.

Just as they were due to present their case, trial attorneys for Prison Health Services and Metro Police settled a civil rights lawsuit filed by the estate of a Las Vegas man who allegedly died from the denial of his AIDS medication while in the Clark County Detention Center.

The undisclosed settlement was agreed to Friday before U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt.

Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said the settlement "should send a message to Clark County, police and Prison Health Services that they need to take seriously the need to provide medical care and meet constitutional standards.

"I would also hope that (government) contracts with Prison Health Services are reconsidered," Peck added.

The ACLU and Robert Langford acted as joint counsel on the case that centered on Karl Robert Kurfis' death and sought punitive damages against Metro and Prison Health Services Inc., the medical contractor for the Clark County Detention Center. The lawsuit sought $10 million in damages.

Kurfis, 34, died in June 2002 of a strain of pneumonia that AIDS patients often contract. Kurfis was arrested in February 2000 on a burglary charge and was held until September of that year only receiving his AIDS medication 14 days during the incarceration, Langford said.

Langford told the jury that Dr. Harvey Hoffman, the jail's medical director, discontinued Kurfis' medication soon after he was booked into the jail, and in a deposition Kurfis testified that Hoffman told him that he didn't deserve his medication because he was a drug addict.

Bruce Alverson, representing the defendants in the case, who also include former Sheriff Jerry Keller and Hoffman, countered that Kurfis did not die because of mistreatment at the jail, but because of his own unwillingness to take his medication when he was not incarcerated.

Alverson never called a witness in the case, however, because the case was settled before the defense presented its case. Alverson did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Prison Health Services, a Brentwood, Tenn.-based company, serves more than 400 jail and prison sites around the country. Prison Health Services has provided medical care at the jail since January 1999, when the company purchased EMSA Correctional Care, the previous provider.

The company has been penalized in New York state for failing to meet standards in 12 city jails there.