Louisiana Voice

That whistleblower’s complaint by a former nurse at the LASALLE CORRECTIONS-run Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia has just exploded into a major class-action federal lawsuit that lays bare the widespread practice of unwanted hysterectomies performed on female detainees that, if not condoned, then were at least allowed by Ruston-based LaSalle Corrections and a host of co-defendants, including Attorney General William Barr and Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf.

The lawsuit, lodged in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, was filed by 14 women on behalf of a “main class” of 60 women and a “retaliation sub-class,” claims that a doctor who only five years was among a group of doctors at Irwin County Hospital who settled a MEDICAID FRAUD CASE for $520,000, performed unwanted hysterectomies on female detainees after telling each of the women they had ovarian cysts or, in one case, a benign tumor.

In several of the cases, follow-up examinations by another doctor revealed no such condition existed.

Claims asserted in the 154-page COMPLAINT bring to mind the infamous “Tuskegee Study” of the effects of syphilis on Black men in which victims were allowed to go untreated for the disease.

Like the Tuskegee victims, the federal detainees at the LaSalle-run facility were not informed of the medical procedures being performed on them. Unlike Tuskegee, the women from the Irwin County Detention Center were not volunteers and had no say in their treatment or choice of doctors.

Among the claims of the plaintiffs:

• Subjecting them to unconstitutional and unlawful practices;
• Retaliating against petitioners for bringing the suit;
• Retaliating against or otherwise deterring petitioners from testifying in federal court proceedings or otherwise participating in any investigation or legal action related to their detention or abuse, including deportations;
• Removing witnesses needed in connection with an ongoing criminal investigation.

The last claim involved either placing witnesses in solitary confinement or transferring them to another area in order to conceal them from congressional investigators – and warning witnesses to keep their mouths shut and not talk to investigators.

Defendants, besides Wolf, Barr, and LaSalle, include:

• U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE);
• Thomas Giles, Acting Director of the Atlanta Field Office of ICE;
• Tony Pham, Senior Official performing the duties of ICE director;
• Cesar Ciprian, Supervisory Detention and Deportation Officer of ICE Atlanta Field Office;
• Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC);
• David Paulk, warden of Irwin County Detention Center;
• Hospital Authority of Irwin County;
• Dr. Mahendra Amin, the doctor who performed the surgical procedures on the detainees, and
• Various other officials and employees of ICE, LaSalle, and Irwin County Detention Center.

Amin, who also is accused of indiscriminately administering Depo, aka birth control, shots, invariably would perform painful vaginal examinations on the women and declare that they had ovarian cysts and were in need of surgery, paid for, of course, by Medicaid.

The women claimed in their petition that they were coerced to sign consent forms printed only in English even though they did not understand English and no interpreters were provided.

Moreover, some of the women, including a 16-year-old were required to fully disrobe in the presence of a guard who refused to leave the examination room – even during vaginal examinations.

One of the women, 35-year-old Jenel Haug, described her experience as “the most medical way of being raped you could possibly experience.”

The “main class” is defined in the lawsuit as “All individuals who were subjected to non-consensual, medically unindicated, and/or invasive gynecological procedures while they were detained in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at the Irwin County Detention Center.”

The proposed “retaliation sub-class” was defined as “All individuals who, after speaking out about or protesting experiencing non-consensual, medically unindicated, and/or invasive gynecological procedures while they were detained in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at the Irwin County Detention Center, were subject to retaliation by ICE and ICDC respondents.”

“The Main Class and the Retaliation Sub-Class are so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable,” the petition says. “There are at least 60 individuals who are members of the Main Class. Given the rampant, systematic retaliation against petitioners and putative class members, many of the at least 60 individuals are also members of the Retaliation Sub-Class.”

The petition says that because ICE contracts with Irwin County, which in turn contracts with LaSalle, for the operation of the detention facility, “ICDC, LaSalle, and their employees, agents and officers are state or local actors and subject to suit…independent of whether they may also be considered federal actors because they are engaging in the core federal function of civil immigration detention.”

Shortly before a congressional delegation, led by Sen. Corey Booker of New Jersey, arrived at ICDC, the defendants and their employees/contractors transferred some survivors of the alleged medical abuse to a different area that was not scheduled for inspection by the delegation. Defendants ordered the women not to speak to any of the congressmembers.

One of the women, Yanira Yesenia Oldaker, on Oct. 28, provided a declaration and list of victims to her attorneys. Four days later, her commissary account was “zeroed-out,” in preparation for her deportation. Only the intervention of her attorneys prevented her forced exit from the country.

Others were not so fortunate despite court rulings that say the deportation of a material witness in a criminal proceeding may establish a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

“Respondents have acted in bad faith by deporting several petitioners within days, and in some cases, within hours, of (their) coming forward and sharing their experiences at ICDC,” the petition says. “By deporting or threatening to deport petitioners in this case, respondents have infringed on the rights of all petitioners to a full and fair hearing on their claims.”

LaSalle has been cited on numerous occasions for negligence, a lack of proper training for employees, falsification of records, and even for failure to pay benefits for employees (see HERE, HERE and HERE, and it was recently announced that it would be TERMINATING ITS CONTRACT to run the Bowie County Bi-State Jail in Texarkana on Feb. 12 after a number of lawsuits over wrongful deaths, injuries and abusive treatment at the facility.

One of the promises made by Joe Biden in his successful campaign for president was to abolish the practice of private prisons.