MADISON, Wis. — Guards at Wisconsin’s oldest maximum security prison failed to provide basic care to inmates who died on their watch, including one who died of dehydration and another who wasn’t discovered until at least 12 hours after suffering a stroke, authorities said Wednesday as they announced charges against the warden and eight staff members.
Waupun Correctional Facility Warden Randall Hepp has been charged with official misconduct. Eight others have been charged with felony inmate abuse, three of whom have also been charged with misconduct.
“We are operating Wisconsin’s oldest prison in a dangerous and reckless manner,” Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt, who led the investigation, said at a news conference announcing the charges.
Hepp, who faces up to three and a half years in prison if convicted, announced last week that he plans to retire at the end of June. In an email to Waupun officials, he said he had helped improve “safety and order” at the prison.
Hepp’s lawyer, Robert Webb, declined to comment.
Three of the four deaths are the subject of federal lawsuits. The state Department of Corrections is investigating the prison’s operations, and the governor last year asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate contraband at the facility.
Department of Corrections Commissioner Jared Hoy said in a statement that more than 20 people remain under internal investigation, at least eight are on administrative leave and nine have been fired or retired since the investigation began a year ago. Hoy called on the sheriff’s office to continue the investigation and make any findings public. Schmidt said the investigation could be reopened if new evidence is uncovered during the internal investigation.
Dean Hoffman, the first of four inmates to die, committed suicide in his cell last June. Hoffman’s daughter filed a federal lawsuit in February alleging that prison authorities failed to provide her father with proper mental health care and medication.
Tyshan Lemons and Cameron Williams were found dead at the facility in October. Dodge County Coroner P.J. Schaubell said Lemons overdosed on acetyl fentanyl, a powerful opioid painkiller, and Williams died of a stroke.
Donald Meyer was found dead in the prison in February, and his cause of death was ruled a homicide caused by malnutrition and dehydration, Schmidt said.
All charges are related to the deaths of Williams and Meyer.
According to a criminal complaint, Williams told an inmate advocate three days before his death that he needed to go to the hospital, but no action was taken. Two days before, Williams had fallen in the shower and crawled into his cell, and the day before that, he had collapsed on his way back to his cell, but neither fall was recorded, according to the complaint.
He died of a stroke sometime on Oct. 29, according to the lawsuit, but his body wasn’t discovered until late the next morning, at least 12 hours after he’d been dead. The nurse, sergeant and lieutenant charged in his death never checked on him that night, according to the lawsuit.
A separate lawsuit alleges that Meyer suffered from severe mental illness but refused or did not receive medication for the eight days leading up to his death.
An inmate told investigators that guards had turned off the water because Meier was flushing his cell. Six days before his death, he told staff, “Water, water, water, I want all the water in the world,” and made gestures as if he was swimming in his cell. Guards also saw him drinking water from the toilet, the complaint said.
The complaint said security guards turned the water on and off for Meyer, but investigators said no one told him when the water was turned on. The complaint also said security guards didn’t bring Meyer any food in the four days before his death.
Asked whether staff understand the prison’s water-cutting policy, Hepp said the policy is emailed but he doesn’t think anyone at any facility actually reads it, and no U.S. prison keeps track of all of an inmate’s meals.
Attorney Mark Hazelbaker is representing nurse Gwendolyn Vick, who is accused of abuse in connection with Williams’ death. According to the complaint, a nurse from the previous shift told her Williams was lying on the floor of his cell, but she never checked on him. She told investigators she told guards she wasn’t sure if she needed to go into Williams’ cell because he was always trying to get to the hospital, the complaint states.
Hazelbaker said Vick was “deeply saddened” by the four deaths at the prison, but that she was not responsible for anyone’s deaths. He said people have a right to voice their opinions on issues surrounding prison health care provision, adding that there is real incompetence on the part of the Department of Corrections in not adequately staffing aging prisons and replacing them with new staff.
The city of Waupun’s staff vacancy rate was 43% as of the end of May, according to city department data.
“I can’t stress enough that this is a massive systems failure,” Hazelbaker said. “It’s dangerous. People don’t want to work there.”
The problems at Waupun prison go beyond inmate deaths: Governor Tony Evers’ office announced in March that federal agents were investigating a possible smuggling ring involving prison staff.
Evers said Wednesday that everyone who was found guilty of dereliction of duty will be held accountable.
Republican lawmakers on Wednesday renewed their calls for Evers to close the Waupun prison and another maximum security prison in Green Bay, both of which were built in the 1800s.
“Tony Evers can no longer turn a blind eye to reality,” said state Sen. Van Wangardt, chairman of the Senate committee that oversees state prisons.
