FORT SMITH - The Sebastian County Quorum Court will convene for a special meeting Tuesday to consider an ordinance appropriating $145,000 as part of a settlement in a federal court jail death lawsuit.
A memorandum released by County Judge David Hudson calling for the meeting stated parties have reached a settlement in the U.S. District Court lawsuit filed in February 2012 by Joe Wolf, brother of Gary Van Wolf who was murdered in the jail on Sept. 16, 2010, by inmate Ashley Kaufman.
Wolf, of Oklahoma City, sued the Sebastian County jail, former Sheriff Frank Atkinson, current Sheriff Bill Hollenbeck, then-jail administrator Mike Conger and jail deputies Kim Taulbee, Aaron Mariott, Brian McGrew and John Devane, who is now the jail administrator.
The case is set to go to trial April 8 before a federal court jury in Fort Smith, according to court records.
Hudson said the county agreed after a Feb. 28 settlement conference to pay Wolf $495,000, conditional on the Quorum Court’s approval of the appropriation ordinance. Of the total, $350,000 would be the limit paid from the county’s insurance with the Arkansas Association of Counties’ Risk Management Fund, leaving the county to pay the remaining $145,000.
Quorum Court members will be asked to approve an ordinance appropriating the $145,000 from the county’s Jail Restricted Fund.
Hudson said the Jail Restricted Fund is an accumulation of jail fees and other county funds and initially was used to pay for a $4 million jail expansion in 2006 that increased jail space from 266 to 362 inmates. The fund has been used since then to pay jail operating costs, he said. The fund’s balance is $356,580, Hudson stated in the memorandum.
Hudson said Friday he was unsure whether there was a deadline for approving the settlement, but “I felt enough urgency to call the meeting and get this taken care of.”
Hudson stated in the memorandum that he and Hollenbeck attended the settlement conference along with the county’s attorney, Jason Owens, who also represents the Risk Management Program.
He said the county did not admit as part of the settlement it was deliberately indifferent to Gary Van Wolf’s death, as charged in the lawsuit, but also didn’t say the county was admitting responsibility.
“The county acknowledged a life was lost and this was more worthy of a settlement rather than going to trial,” he said.
Since taking office in January 2011, Hollenbeck said Friday, he has hired more jail deputies, improved training, brought in a deputy to monitor the jail population and fast-track release of nonviolent misdemeanor inmates, and improved medical facilities at the jail.
He said if voters renew a 1 percent countywide sales tax in May, he will hire 11 more jail deputies when the funds become available.
“We certainly have made a lot of improvements so far, but we still have a ways to go,” he said.
Gary Van Wolf, 64, was strangled to death by Kaufman in the CC pod, or wing, of the county jail, jurors were told at Kaufman’s Sebastian County Circuit Court trial in February2012. The pod was reserved for inmates in protective custody to keep them away from other inmates. Gary Van Wolf had been arrested on a charge of second degree sexual assault, accused of fondling two children.
Kaufman was in the pod under administrative segregation for attacking another jailer and was kept locked in his cell because the pod he would have been held in was being painted. The morning of the murder, he was released from administrative segregation but was not removed from the pod.
Instead, he was allowed out of the cell with the other prisoners in the pod for an hour that morning to eat breakfast and to shower. During that time, according to testimony at Kaufman’s trial, he called Gary Van Wolf into his cell, strangled him, tied a plastic bag over his head, dragged Gary Van Wolf back to Gary Van Wolf’s cell,put him in his bunk and covered him up.
When a jail deputy returned to the pod 63 minutes after leaving, another inmate, who witnessed the murder, alerted the deputy.
Kaufman, 28, was sentenced to life in prison after the jury convicted him of first-degree murder.
Joe Wolf filed the lawsuit against the county in federal court three days after Kaufman’s trial. One of Wolf’s attorneys, Ron Metcalf of Fort Smith, said it would be inappropriate to comment on the proposed lawsuit settlement when contacted Friday.
Attorneys for Wolf alleged the jail deputy assigned to the pod was absent longer than he should have been because he also was guarding a second pod because the county had too few jail deputies and too many inmates.
Arkansas, Pages 20 on 03/09/2013