On June 24, 2009, four individuals previously incarcerated at the Delaware County Jail filed this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma. The plaintiffs sued the Sheriff of Delaware County under 42 U.S.C § 1983. The plaintiffs, represented by private counsel, sought monetary relief for severe emotional distress, psychological damage, and significant pain and suffering, personal humiliation, and degradation. The plaintiffs claimed that the Sheriff failed to properly train, supervise, or control deputies and jailers while they were in charge of female inmates. They alleged that the jailers' negligence and misconduct deprived them of rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to be free from unreasonable search and seizure and their rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments’ due process and equal protection clauses. Specifically, the plaintiffs claimed that the Sheriff’s Office of Delaware County had engaged in rape, sodomy, sexual battery, and blackmail.

The parties commenced discovery the following year. Settlement conferences were anticipated as early as August 2010. Additionally, from the day of the initial complaint until February 11, 2011, the plaintiffs amended the complaint four times to increase the number of plaintiffs. The final complaint included 17 individuals with similar stories of sexual abuse by a law enforcement official while in vulnerable situations such as the bathroom or shower in the county jail as well as on medical visits. In June 2011, Judge James Payne granted an unopposed motion to dismiss one plaintiff. Additionally, later that month, the judge found a motion to dismiss another plaintiff as moot. Again, in September 2011, another plaintiff was dismissed by the judge on a joint stipulation from both parties.

Settlement conference dates were pushed back multiple times until the parties filed a motion to enforce a settlement agreement and to enter judgment on November 7, 2011. On December 1, 2011, Judge Payne entered judgment enforcing a full and final settlement of the action. The agreement awarded $13,500,000 to the plaintiffs with no liability admitted on behalf of the Sheriff of Delaware County, or the Board of Commissioners of Delaware County or Delaware County. By May 2012, the defendant has paid the amount in full and the case is now closed.

Richa Bijlani - 10/02/2019


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