The family of Desiree Diaz, who died at age 33 in 2018 after spending one night in York Correctional Institution in East Lyme, again has filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the state of Connecticut and its Department of Correction.

Her mother, Katherine Lindsay, is represented by civil rights defense attorney Ken Krayeske of Hartford in this matter. Lindsay and Krayeske withdrew a similar 2020 action before reentering the standing complaint in February of this year.

In the complaint, Krayeske described the last hours of Diaz’s life.

Groton Town police arrested town resident Diaz on charges of breach of peace, third-degree assault and violation of a protective order on June 3, 2018; she allegedly was intoxicated and was accused of physically assaulting the father of her three children. While dealing with alcohol withdrawal in custody, she fell into a coma and eventually died due to her underactive thyroid.

After an autopsy, the cause of death was determined as “sudden death in the setting of chronic ethanolism (alcohol dependence) and hypothyroidism.”

Before her incarceration, Diaz “suffered from a thyroid condition in addition to her addiction to alcohol,” Krayeske wrote in the complaint. He said this was known information when Diaz was taken into custody, as a nurse electronically signed Diaz’s medical record the night of June 4, 2018. The next morning, Diaz was found unresponsive in her prison cell.

Krayeske and Lindsay are claiming that Diaz “was denied the proper medical treatment by not having her thyroid levels monitored, along with not being placed in a detox watch,” according to the complaint.

“The injuries suffered and death by Ms. Diaz were caused by the negligence of the State of Connecticut Department of Correction,” the complaint reads. “The State of Connecticut Department of Correction had a duty to provide appropriate medical care and treatment to Ms. Diaz ... As a result of the State of Connecticut Department of Correction’s breach of its duties ... failed to exercise reasonable care in the treatment of Decedent Ms. Diaz, causing her to endure unnecessary wanton pain and suffering, both physical and psychological, and premature death.”

“The DOC never gave her any detox, and they found her dead in the cell the next morning,” Krayeske said in an interview with The Day. He emphasized that she was at York only one night before she died, and mentioned efforts in the state legislature to provide oversight of the DOC’s health care system.

Senate Bill 448 would create a commission to oversee the DOC’s administration of health care, as the DOC currently oversees itself. This commission also will evaluate “whether the Department of Public Health should have oversight over the provision of such services or license the facilities located in such correctional institutions where inmates receive health care services.”

During a news conference supporting the bill last week, Krayeske cited several women who served as examples that the health care issues at York are systemic. 

“They should have had her on medical observation, and they should’ve had her in a detox protocol,” Krayeske said of Diaz. “There’s a specific protocol they have for detox that they didn’t do. And for an alcoholic with thyroid problems? My client was ill, suffering from addiction, and the DOC did not recognize this despite the court telling it to do so, and everybody knows that alcoholics can’t simply detox without medical oversight, it’ll kill them.”

The Attorney General’s Office moved to dismiss the complaint in March because the expert — an endocrinologist whose name has not yet been publicly released — who wrote an opinion letter for Krayeske and his client didn’t work in the specific area of correctional nursing. Amy L. Caturano, a nurse at York, conducted the intake screening on Diaz.

“The plaintiff’s allegations of medical malpractice sweep broadly, but at their core, target Nurse Caturano’s intake assessment on Diaz. In essence, plaintiff alleges that Nurse Caturano did not adequately assess Diaz during the intake assessment,” the state wrote in its motion to dismiss. “To support her claims of medical malpractice, the plaintiff does not attach an opinion letter of a registered nurse, but instead, offers an opinion letter of a ‘board-certified endocrinologist.’ The author does not list any of his credentials, training or experience other than the fact that he is board-certified in endocrinology. This author goes on to state that ‘in (his) capacity as a board-certified endocrinologist,’ he believes Diaz was denied proper medical care solely for ‘not having her thyroid levels monitored upon entry into (York CI).’”

The state is claiming that Diaz’s estate’s legal team “was required to attach an opinion-letter of a nurse with experience or training in correctional nursing in order to comply with the ‘similar health care provider'" statutory requirement.

“Even though the plaintiff sued the state directly and not any individual health care provider, the ‘good faith’ requirements still apply,” the state wrote.

On Tuesday, Krayeske asked the court for more time in responding to the state’s motion to dismiss the complaint. A status conference on the matter is scheduled for July 1. He noted that the complaint “refers to systematic negligence, malpractice and mismanagement, but they’re saying we’re only talking about one nurse.”

“No, no, no. We’re talking about something broader than one nurse, which is why we went through the claims commissioner, because this is against the entire state, not one single defendant,” Krayeske told The Day. He went on to criticize Attorney General William Tong, saying he “exercises zero oversight over the public safety division, and it’s clear, because if he had a shred of decency, he would not allow his lawyers to act in this manner.”

s.spinella@theday.com