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| Jail Inmate's Medical File Shredded; Feds Launch Probe |
| By Newsday |
| Published: 11/18/2002 |
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Investigators from the U.S. Department of Justice are looking into an incident in which a clerk tried to shred medical files of Nassau County jail inmates and whether she was ordered to do so by the jail's medical director. Sheriff Edward Reilly said recently he called in the federal agency after he learned of the incident and investigators spent a day last week interviewing jail and hospital staff members. But he declined to discuss details, saying the matter is under investigation. 'We contacted them because we thought we should and I believe they were satisfied that we reached out to them right away,' Reilly said. 'But we will have to wait until they come back' to release any details, he said. Marla Tepper, the assistant U. S. attorney who has been looking into medical care issues at the jail for the past two years, declined to comment. Richard Turan, chief executive officer of Nassau Health Care Corp., the public benefit corporation that runs the Nassau University Medical Center, which provides medical care to inmates at the jail in East Meadow, said the shredding was merely doing a routine procedure. He said the clerk was getting rid of documents that didn't belong in medical files. However, the clerk did have one file that wasn't supposed to be shredded, Turan said. He added, 'It was reported to me that this was routine material with the exception of that one file and that was accidentally on top of the pile.' Turan said someone observing the clerk grew concerned about the shredding and questioned her about it and no documents were shredded. He said the medical director, Dr. James Neal, has denied ordering the clerk to do any shredding. The jail, and Neal specifically, has been under intense scrutiny by the justice department, which started a civil probe of the jail's medical care and use of force policy following the 1999 fatal beating of inmate Thomas Pizzuto. Besides a criminal investigation, the government also raised questions about Pizzuto's medical care following the beating. The county and the federal government reached an agreement last April to revamp the medical care, after a federal report indicated there were major deficiencies. But just last month, a federal consultant hired to check on medical care said government standards had still not been met. |
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