The ex-doctor convicted of arranging the bomb attack that maimed and disfigured the head of the Arkansas State Medical Board almost seven years ago is suing the Pulaski County jail, its medical director and the federal agents who arranged his pretrial detention.
Randeep Mann, 57, is serving a life sentence in an Indiana federal prison for setting up the bomb attack that nearly killed Dr. Trent Pierce, who was then the chairman of the board, outside Pierce's West Memphis home in February 2009.
At the time, Mann, a Russellville physician, was the subject of a board investigation into his prescription practices.
Mann, who also had been a federally licensed firearms dealer, was convicted only of setting up the bombing. The actual bomber never has been publicly identified.
Mann, whose medical license has been revoked, was arrested in March 2009, convicted at trial in August 2010 of aiding and abetting the use of a weapon of mass destruction, and sentenced in February 2011.
In March, a Crittenden County jury awarded Pierce and his wife $122.5 million in civil damages, a verdict that Mann has appealed to the Arkansas Court of Appeals.
In two lawsuits, Mann, acting as his own lawyer, accused U.S. marshals and agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in one suit, and the jail and its medical director in the other, of deliberately cutting off the morphine, alprazolam and Percocet he had been prescribed for back and neck pain when he was detained in the Dallas County jail.
He was also denied an orthopedic pillow for a neck injury and prescription testosterone for gonad failure, according to his lawsuits.
He was never properly examined by a doctor during his pretrial detention, and imprisonment without medication for his legitimately diagnosed illnesses eventually forced him to undergo shoulder replacement surgery, the filing states.
When he was transferred to the Pulaski County jail, his shackles kept him from physical therapy, according to the suits.
At one point, he was put in solitary confinement for five days, where he was kept naked solely to humiliate him under the pretense that he was on suicide watch despite never having shown any signs he wanted to injure himself, the petitions state.
He describes his treatment as "torture."
Abruptly having his medications cut off at the Pulaski County jail forced him to go through withdrawals that made him physically ill while the loss of his testosterone medication sent him into depression, Mann says.
But his health problems were never adequately addressed by the jail's medical director, Carl Johnson, Mann states in his lawsuits.
Mann is asking U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker to convene a jury to hear his complaints.
He's seeking compensatory and punitive damages as well as court orders to change how federal agents manage their prisoners and how the Pulaski County jail handles inmate patient care.
Metro on 11/19/2015