Nassau lawmakers OK $450,000 settlement with family of inmate who died in jail

Nassau County lawmakers approved a $450,000 settlement Monday with the family of an Oceanside man whose 2014 death in jail custody became a symbol to critics of inadequate inmate health care that led to demands for reform.

John Gleeson’s family said in a 2015 federal lawsuit against Nassau County, its jail and ex-jail medical vendor, Armor Correctional Health Services, that he was denied competent and necessary care by defendants who also included former Sheriff Michael Sposato.

The lawsuit followed a 2015 finding by the state Commission of Correction that Gleeson’s death might have been prevented if not for Armor’s "incompetent and deficient" medical treatment.

Gleeson, 40, was an electrician and divorced father of two who suffered from angioedema, a medical condition where swelling can lead to breathing emergencies.

Court records show all parties reached an agreement to settle the lawsuit in January. But terms of the settlement with Armor aren’t available to the public. A federal court clerk said after Newsday requested a transcript of the settlement proceedings that a judge had sealed that record.

Both attorney James Pascarella, whose law firm represented the Gleesons, and attorney Frank Kelly, who represented Armor in the case, declined to comment Monday.

The county executive's office didn't answer a request for comment after the legislature took action on the settlement Monday.

The Gleeson lawsuit also had said that while the county knew of Armor’s "propensity for performing deficient health and medical services," officials ignored the state’s findings and — in 2013 and 2015 — renewed the for-profit company’s contract anyway.

The plaintiffs’ lawsuit described Gleeson’s last hours as a "nightmarish horror" as he was "gasping for breath." Fellow inmates said despite Gleeson’s throat swelling dramatically, he told them on the night he died in July 2014 that jail medical personnel had given him Benadryl and sent him back to his cell, Newsday previously reported.

One fellow inmate also said Gleeson had complained of serious breathing trouble and another said Gleeson made repeated trips to the jail infirmary that day.

His neck became so swollen before he died that he "looked like a bullfrog," one inmate who had been in the same dorm told Newsday in 2015.

Another inmate, a Navy veteran, said in a 2015 interview that nobody would have looked at Gleeson and thought anything other than that he was going to die.

On the last day of his life, Gleeson had pleaded not guilty to a burglary indictment. Family has said his life took a downturn after a doctor prescribed painkillers following an on-the-job injury.

In 2015, the state commission's report on Gleeson's death also found Armor had a pattern of negligent inmate treatment at the New York correctional facilities where it held contracts.

The findings sparked calls for the suspension of Armor's contract, a call Democratic county lawmakers renewed months later while asking federal officials to investigate what they called an "ongoing civil rights crisis" involving poor jail medical care.

Before Armor’s role under former County Executive Edward Mangano’s administration ended in 2017, the commission found Armor provided inadequate care in at least eight of the 14 Nassau inmate deaths that had occurred since the company's tenure began in 2011.

In 2016, the state attorney general’s office sued Armor, alleging the company routinely failed to address inmates’ medical needs and ripped off taxpayers by continuing to collect millions in public money.

The state settled its lawsuit with Armor months later, with the company paying a $350,000 fine, agreeing not to bid on New York contracts for three years and admitting no wrongdoing.

In 2017, Nassau legislators voted for a two-year, $42-million pact for inmate jail care with Nassau Health Care Corp., which runs Nassau University Medical Center. The contract returned medical treatment to a system in which unionized county employees treat inmates on-site at the East Meadow jail.