BECKLEY, W.Va. — U.S. District Magistrate Judge Omar J. Alboulhosn has recommended default judgment in the class-action lawsuit against Southern Regional Jail over the facilities alleged inhumane conditions.
The federal magistrate entered the scathing order in the case Monday. In his order, he said paper records of grievances and investigations were “intentionally destroyed” at Southern Regional Jail.
Alboulhosn called the recommendation for default judgment “extraordinary, but clearly warranted considering the intentional conduct in this case and other cases.” The recommendation of default judgement by Alboulhosn has been sent to U.S. District Judge Frank Volk. If granted by Volk, he or a jury would then decide what’s awarded to the plaintiffs financially.
A handful of current and former state corrections officials provided testimony during a hearing October 2 to the jails conditions. Alboulhosn said in his nearly 15 years as a federal and state judge, the evidence presented in this case is both “remarkable” and “disturbing.”
Regarding the failure to preserve and produce electronic evidence, Alboulhosn said during the time of the early October hearing that he couldn’t wrap his head around why the email accounts of six former corrections workers would be purged. Those six people all left in 2022.
According to testimony, once members left the agency, their emails and Google drives were “deprovisioned,” meaning access to their state accounts and the contents of the accounts were permanently deleted and completely lost after 30 days.
The lawsuit was filed in September of 2022 against Southern Regional Jail, the West Virginia Division of Corrections and every county commission that pays Southern Regional to house inmates. The emergency in the state jail has been ongoing since then.
Gov. Jim Justice’s chief of staff Brian Abraham said there was never any intentions for evidence to be destroyed. Abraham recently called the purging of emails “a mistake” and “not a purposeful action.”
“This administration was unaware that there was a policy in place at the Office of Technology to delete the emails of employees who left employment with the State of West Virginia,” said Abraham.
“To say the Court found the testimony elicited from these Defendants shocking is a gross understatement,” Alboulhosn further said in his order.
Plaintiffs in the case had called for depositions from both Justice and Abraham, but Alboulhosn put a stay on subpoenas to depose Justice and Abraham last week.
Seven witnesses in total were called to testify in early October, including Executive Officer for the West Virginia Department of Corrections Brad Douglas and former state Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeff Sandy.
Douglas said in his testimony he had no excuse for why emails and other pieces of electronic evidence were not preserved. Alboulhosn also said that Douglas could not confirm whether five years worth of inmate grievances had been preserved either.
“The fact that publicly funded agencies can lose (and in this case, has lost) critical information as to how these agencies are administered, funded, or even governed is beyond the pale,” said Alboulhosn in his order.