Mentally Ill Inmate Punished Behind Bars
Jan. 31 -- Felix Jorge was caught on tape screaming while guards physically removed him from his prison cell in the throes of a full psychotic breakdown. Less than 72 hours later, he committed suicide.
This is the story of how he got here.
In 1992, at age 22, Jorge was arrested for holding up a woman with a toy gun. He was sent to prison for three to six years.
Despite a history of psychiatric hospitalizations dating back to his childhood, it took seven months before prison officials realized the full extent of Jorge's mental illness.
According to prison documents obtained by ABCNEWS, after a psychotic episode in which he "barricaded himself in his cell" and "said his mother was calling him," Jorge was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and sent to the Central New York Psychiatric Center.
After treatment, the doctors sent Jorge back to Auburn State Prison with a warning to officials there that he "could have the potential for imminent danger to himself."
"At Auburn, the first day he's back, he's made to stand trial for having had a psychotic episode before he left," recalls Jorge's attorney, Ed Miller, "and he's punished for it."
Jorge was found guilty of "creating a disturbance" and "refusing a direct order," and he was then sent to solitary confinement or the "hole."
Treatment Discarded, Lucidity Detoriated
In the hole, Jorge soon began refusing his medications as paranoid schizophrenics often do.
And despite the fact that the doctors had recommended "continual daily counseling…to encourage him to accept" the drugs, Jorge never got such counseling.
"Without that, he was lost," explains Miller. "He was a dead man."
After three months without medication, Jorge tried to kill himself by swallowing 150 Tylenol pills. After he got back from the hospital, he was again punished: He was found guilty of "self-inflicted bodily harm." He was sent back to the hole.
One month after that, he was transferred to the Clinton Correctional Facility. But his medical file evidently got lost in the shuffle.
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