Ten days later, after telling her family and prison authorities about the threat, Ellington was found dead in a confinement cell at Lowell.
The death of Ellington, a mother of four with only seven months left to serve at the nation’s largest women’s prison, is a case study in how the state of Florida often fails to fully investigate suspicious inmate deaths. The story includes an inmate who was seemingly too young to die, a controversial autopsy, unchecked leads, uncollected evidence, unresolved contradictions and, finally, a finding that she died of natural causes, even though she had anelevated — and possibly toxic — level of medication in her system.
Her death also unearthed a history of violence and abuse at Lowell, including allegations of corruption and of an almost unbridled physical, sexual and mental persecution of inmates by corrections officers and staff at the prison.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement closed the Ellington case on Jan. 21, 2015,
with no findings of foul play. Ellington, 36, died of heart disease, the medical examiner said.
During the investigation, Quercioli, 51, and other officers were linked to possible sexual misconduct — a third-degree felony in Florida.
One Lowell sergeant was so disturbed by Ellington’s sudden death on Oct. 1 and the events that happened afterward that he took a leave of absence and secretly met with an FDLE investigator at a police department close to his home because he was too nervous about meeting at the prison. He told FDLE and the Herald that he suspected his commanders had been covering up prostitution, sexual abuse and corruption at Lowell.
The officer, Sgt. Berend Bergner, said that after he took Ellington’s complaint on Sept. 21, 2014, Quercioli and another officer, Dustin Thrasher, 31, threatened to beat him up. Bergner also told FDLE that the report he took from Ellington then suspiciously vanished fromthe sergeants’office that evening.
Bergner, 32, told FDLE agent John Carlisle he suspected that Quercioli, Thrasher and other officers were giving inmates cigarettes in exchange for sexual favors, according to the FDLE report.
The Herald reached out to Quercioli’s and Thrasher’s attorney, H. Richard Bisbee, for this story, but there was no response to a request for comment. In a prior letter to the Herald, Bisbee noted that Quercioli wasn’t working the day that Ellington died, and FDC confirmed that he had taken comp leave from Sept. 24 to Sept. 30, returning to work on Oct. 3. Thrasher was on duty during that time, FDC records show.
Both
officers were terminated from the department this August because, FDC said, they were unable to perform their duties. In a letter to the Herald, Bisbee said Quercioli had suffered severe emotional distress as a result of past media coverage on Ellington’s death and he threatened to sue the Herald if previous stories weren’t retracted and an apology issued.
Ellington’s family, who filed a civil lawsuit against the state in September, blames the Department of Corrections for failing to recognize that “employees, including [Lowell’s] assistant warden and/or corrections officers, were using excessive force, being sexually inappropriate with female inmates, and/or making threats of physical violence towards the inmates.”
The family alleges that Ellington was beaten and was subjected to inhumane treatment and medical neglect.
Barbara Wolf, the medical examiner who performed
Ellington’s autopsy, said she found no evidence of trauma indicative of a beating.
What neither the autopsy nor the FDLE report noted, however, was that toxicology tests showed Ellington had a potentially toxic level of a blood pressure medication, called Amlodipine, in her system. Wolf, in a recent interview with the Herald, attributed the elevated Amlodipine to a process called “post-mortem redistribution,’’ in which levels of certain medications can increase in a person’s bloodstream after death.
Read more here:
At Lowell, sex, death and a probe riddled with questions
Only in Amerikkkuah
Where is the "Black Live Matter Movement when you need them
a knife carrying crazy nikka high on PCP shot down by cops in Chicago is enough to inspire them to get their Selma on but whenever black women fall victim to police brutality/murder these nikkas are no where to be found
