Federal jury awards $3.2M to Thomas Donohue, of Franklin Square, former Nassau jail inmate who sued over meds

A federal jury in Brooklyn awarded $3.25 million this week to a former inmate at the Nassau County Correctional Center who said he experienced a mental health crisis after a jail physician refused to provide him with medication he used to treat depression and anxiety.

Thomas Donohue, of Franklin Square, said in the lawsuit that Armor Correctional Health Care Services and Dr. Vincent Manetti violated his constitutional rights in 2014 by denying him medication he had used for 20 years to address depression and other longstanding mental health issues. Armor had a contract at the time with Nassau County at the time to provide health care to inmates at the East Meadow jail, according to a statement from Donohue’s attorneys Fred Brewington and Cobia M. Powell.

The lawsuit went to trial on June 5 and concluded on Wednesday with the jury finding Manetti and Armor liable for $150,000 in compensatory damages.

The jury also found Armor liable for $3 million in punitive damages and Manetti responsible for $100,000 in punitive damages.

Chris Boyle, a spokesman for Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, declined to comment. Nassau County is not a defendant in the lawsuit. The Nassau sheriff’s office was originally named a defendant in the lawsuit, filed in 2015.

Attorneys representing Manetti and Armor – Gabriel Javier Martinez, of New York, and Jayne L. Pickup, of St. Davids, Pennsylvania – also did not respond to requests for comment.

According to court records, Donohue, 60, was arrested on a robbery charge on Sept. 18, 2024, and incarcerated in the Nassau County Correctional Center. He later pleaded guilty to the charge. The lawsuit said he underwent an assessment by Manetti, then an employee of Armor.

Donohue had a prescription for a psychotropic mental health medication that he had been taking for 20 years to alleviate long-term depression, acute anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and panic attacks. Manetti’s assessment of Donohue was brief, the lawsuit said, and the doctor denied the medication and failed to verify the inmate’s long-term prescription.

“Things are different now and we don’t hand out pills anymore – deal with it,” the lawsuit said Manetti told Donohue.

As a result, Donohue suffered for nine months from depression and panic attacks he likened in the lawsuit to torture, court filings said. The lawsuit said Donohue filed a grievance reporting Manetti’s lack of care but was referred back to Armor Health Care Services, which the lawsuit said had a practice of denying necessary medication to inmates.