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A former Suffolk City Jail inmate has won an out-of-court settlement of $179,500 against four sheriff's deputies who allegedly failed to protect him from being brutalized and sodomized by three cellmates

Raymond Bailey, 19, of Isle of Wight County, settled the case Monday, one day before the civil rights case was set for trial in Federal District Court in Norfolk.

The attacks reportedly took place in June 1988, after Bailey was jailed on a misdemeanor conviction for trespassing. Court papers say Bailey is "slow of mind and speech" and "borderline mentally retarded," and was held in a cell with numerous hardened criminals.

Suffolk Sheriff J. Irving Baines was out of town Tuesday and could not be reached for comment. Capt. James E. Vaughan said: "I know not one thing in the world about it. I understand there was a settlement."

The defendants in the case were sheriff's deputies David H. Allmon, Francis Carter, Larry Almond and Jesse Goodman.

Bailey's lawsuit charged that three cellmates repeatedly sodomized him. According to the lawsuit, when Bailey slipped a note through the jail cell begging for help, the jailers ignored him.

The defense admitted that the assaults took place, Bailey's attorneys said, but the defendants denied having been deliberately indifferent to Bailey's predicament.

The lawsuit said Bailey's terrorizers were a fugitive from justice being held for extradition on a felony charge; a felon convicted of rape, assault and an escape in which he reportedly broke a fellow inmate's arms in three places; and another convict known to have assaulted police officers. "They are still incarcerated, to my knowledge," Bailey's attorney, John W. Drescher, said Tuesday.

The lawsuit maintained that jail personnel failed to keep an eye on Bailey's cell despite a policy that such monitoring take place every 30 minutes.

Another inmate, held in a separate section of the cell, reportedly saw the attacks on Bailey and called for help. That inmate, Henry L. Wilson was himself beaten by Bailey's alleged tormentors, the lawsuit charges, but jail personnel still failed to act.

Bailey's lawsuit accused the defendants of "gross and deliberate indifference to the safety" of the inmate. It specifically charged them with failing to segregate young misdemeanor offenders from violent repeat offenders; failing to hire and train sufficient personnel; failing to maintain adequate supervision; and deliberately allowing crowded jail conditions.

Awarded: $179,500

DISCLAIMER: Please note that every case is different, and the verdicts and settlements mentioned on this website, while accurate, do not represent what we may obtain for you in your case.

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