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MCSO jail attacks cost lives, millions in settlements

Over the past decade, taxpayers have paid out more than $21 million in settlements for jail-related lawsuits
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Posted at 9:00 PM, Oct 27, 2022
and last updated 2022-10-29 01:13:51-04

PHOENIX — The warnings were explicit and clear.

Days before murdering another inmate, Maricopa County jail detainee Michael Schroeder told detention officers and mental health professionals he planned to kill someone.

He also demonstrated how he would do it.

“When we arrived at his cell, I was present the entire time, (Schroeder) was naked, he was still naked,” Officer Dion Perkins told detectives in a recorded interview obtained by ABC15. “We asked him, could he please put some clothes on. He put one pants leg on and the other leg was tied, there was three knots and they were extremely tight to the point where he could not take the knots out in order to put his pants on. The mental health professional asked him why he was doing that and he said, ‘I’m practicing killing people…I’m practicing choking somebody.’”

Yet, on March 29, 2022, MCSO placed Steven Lemus, who was facing a simple drug charge, in a cell with Schroeder.

Lemus wouldn’t survive a full day.

“Maricopa County left Steven as a sitting duck in a cell with a deranged mentally ill man,” said Larry Wulkan, an attorney for Lemus’s family, who’s filed a $5 million notice of claim and plans to sue. “Since 2010, Maricopa County has known it has had a problem with how it houses one inmate with another.”

Wulkan is right.

Over the past decade, Maricopa County taxpayers have paid out more than $21,804,853.99 in settlements for jail-related lawsuits, records show. The majority of the most-expensive payouts are related to preventable jailhouse attacks between inmates.

The total does not include millions of additional dollars spent on legal fees to defend the lawsuits.

[NOTE from above spreadsheet: The total amount paid by taxpayers in a case does not always equal the total settlement amount in a lawsuit because of the county’s insurance deductibles.]

In the notice of claim filed by the Lemus family, Wulkan outlines several other cases that he believes are similar.

The combined taxpayer cost of the four settlements mentioned in the notice of claim topped $8.5 million. They are split between two different administrations: Sheriffs Joe Arpaio and Paul Penzone, who was elected in 2016 and took over in 2017.

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Excerpt from the Lemus family's notice of claim

The most recent was a record-breaking total in the Brian Ortiz case, which resulted in an $11.75 million settlement earlier this year. (Taxpayers paid $5 million before the county reached its annual deductible.)

An attorney in the Ortiz case previously released the following video.

[WARNING: The video below contains graphic and violent images.]

Brian Ortiz case

Perhaps most similar to the Lemus attack was the death of John Klatt.

“On January 18, 2014, in an assault eerily similar to this one, inmate John Klatt was beaten by his cellmate, stabbed in the eyes with pencils, and then strangled with a bed sheet. Mr. Klatt passed away from his injuries,” according to the Lemus family’s notice of claim. “His cellmate was known to have a history of assaultive behavior, paranoia, and delusions.”

After Schroeder strangled and choked Lemus, he also took a pencil and stabbed it into his eye before popping it out, records show.

Schroeder is now facing first-degree murder charges.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment specifically on the Lemus case because of pending litigation, but released the following statement:

“Sheriff Penzone requires review of significant events. In cases involving violence in the jail, elements that are reviewed but are not limited to, classification, organizational procedures and protocols, employee responsibilities, efforts to mitigate potential violence through video and technology, threat indicators and staff response to those factors. As the Steven Lemus case is still in litigation, we’ll refrain from commenting at this time. The Sheriff’s commitment to transparency has and will remain unwavering.”

Contact ABC15 Chief Investigator Dave Biscobing at Dave@ABC15.com.