Naples News reports that a wrongful death lawsuit alleging that a mentally ill Ohio man died from repeated sprays with pepper spray has reached a settlement.
Nicholas Christie, 62, was reportedly restrained naked in a chair, deprived of water and toileting, and was exposed to pepper spray 10 times in 43 hours while he was an inmate in Lee County Jail where he was being held for trespassing. Christie, a retired boilermaker, pleaded for mercy, the lawsuit claims, saying he couldn’t breathe. He later died from cardiac arrest.
The inmate’s wife, Joyce Christie, filed a lawsuit against Sherriff Mike Scott, several deputies and nurses, and the jail’s medical provider.
The confidential settlement, which has reached well into seven figures, did not include an agreement to change policies at the jail. But one of Mrs. Christie’s lawyers said that “it would be difficult to imagine that they would continue to expose themselves to such liabilities.”
