The family of Darren Rainey, the 50-year-old schizophrenic inmate whose barbaric shower death led to sweeping reforms in the Florida prison system, has settled a civil rights lawsuit against the Florida Department of Corrections, the Miami Herald has learned.
The settlement notice, filed in federal court in Miami last week, did not disclose the amount or terms of the agreement.
The deal comes nearly six years after Rainey’s death, which was all but ignored by authorities until 2014 — when the Miami Herald wrote about it as part of a three-year investigation into the abuse and suspicious deaths of inmates in Florida state prisons.
It also comes as Florida is set to open a new residential prison treatment facility next month for state prison inmates with mental illnesses. The program is one of a number of initiatives for inmates with disabilities begun since the Herald’s series.
Rainey’s daughter, brother and sister filed the civil lawsuit against the department; Corizon, its medical contractor; Jerry Cummings, the former warden at Dade Correctional Institution; and two corrections officers, Roland Clarke and Cornelius Thompson. It charged that they had subjected Rainey to cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of his constitutional rights.
“I’m thankful for the family appears to have reached a resolution. However, it is not finalized at this moment, so I am reserving any further comment,’’ Milton Grimes, the Rainey family attorney, said on Thursday.
The FDC did not comment, and the Miami Herald was unsuccessful in reaching the attorneys for the other defendants on Thursday.