What's Mom Worth?: When a Woman Became Deathly Ill in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Jail, Guards and Nurses Ignored Her Agony

Her feet had turned black. Her mouth was scabrous.

On January 23, three weeks after her arrest, a priest came into the hospital to visit.

Deborah Braillard, mother

Deposition of Sandra Garfias

Details

To see videotaped depositions with sources in this story, as well as a videotaped interview with Deborah Braillard's daughter, Jennylee, click, here or on the names below:

Lucy Akpan
Jennylee Braillard
Sandra Garfias
Tamela Harper
Stephanie Lieppert
Brenda Tomanini
Dr. Todd Wilcox

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Editor’s note: In 2007, New Times executive editor Michael Lacey and CEO Jim Larkin were arrested by Sheriff Joe Arpaio for reporting on a grand jury. A subsequent investigation by the paper revealed that the grand jury subpoenas were issued without a sitting grand jury. In addition to all reporter’s notes relating to articles about the sheriff, prosecutors sought the identity of online readers of New Times. Michael Manning filed a lawsuit on behalf of the paper in the wake of the arrests. That lawsuit is currently on appeal.

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• Will the Joe Arpaio Recall Effort Get Enough Signatures?
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• Joe Arpaio's Victim Deborah Braillard: Family Agrees to $3.2 Million Settlement, ABC15 Reports
  October 17, 2012
• Deborah Braillard Settlement, for MCSO Jail Death, Rejected by Board of Supervisors
  October 31, 2012
• Joe Arpaio's Victim Deborah Braillard: Seven Figure Settlement in Wrongful Death Lawsuit, ABC 15 Reports
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More About

• Deborah Braillard
• Joe Arpaio
• Todd Wilcox
• Metabolic Disorders
• Internal Medicine

Deborah Braillard had a Bible when she coded.

"I freaked and left the room."

The doctor came around the corner searching for Jennylee.

She screamed, "I know. I know!"

Deborah Braillard, mother

There is no shock, but shock. There is no suffering, but suffering. There is no agony but agony. There is no death, but death. There is but death.

Dr. Todd Wilcox

(2008 deposition)

Upon his arrival, Dr. Wilcox decided that the two principal reforms necessary to make healthcare in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's jail less deadly involved up-to-date health records and a thorough intake process.

"I firmly believed that."

But every attempt to computerize and improve the lax recordkeeping in the sheriff's jail was vetoed by county administrators working under the Board of Supervisors.

Wilcox's concerns about the intake process fared little better.

"Reviewing past medical history is really a critical element of the booking process."

Deborah Braillard was incarcerated three times in 2003, and in each instance, she was treated for diabetes. In 2005, no one — guard, nurse, doctor — looked at the records already on file with the jail that established, unequivocally, that she was insulin-dependent.

"Reviewing past medical history is so critical to us that we actually have a special box on our intake form that the nurses have to check and initial that they have reviewed past medical history."

Deborah Braillard, instead of being treated for diabetes, was presumed by guards to be kicking drugs.

"It's not an adequate response to attribute [her condition] to drug withdrawal. Absolutely not. That's just not appropriate. Even if it were drug withdrawal, that is serious. Drug withdrawal needs to be treated."

Over the four days Deborah Braillard was in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's custody, six guards would watch Braillard's agony. CHS has no record of any of them calling for medical assistance. Assume that is part of CHS' abysmal recordkeeping. The fact remains that not a single officer viewed her tortured "withdrawal" worthy of intervention. No jailer alerted a supervisor. Not a single guard mentioned Braillard's condition to the nurses who visited the cellblock twice a day to dispense pills. Why?

"I can tell you that the prevailing philosophy here is . . . tough on crime. We want people to be uncomfortable and not enjoy the jail stay. [Guards] are not proactive about making sure that things are going okay within the jails. Inmates have to fend for themselves in these jails . . . The end result [is] these jails are much more violent."

Although Dr. Wilcox focused on the tsunami of lost records and the unconstitutional admissions process, he was, at times, simply stunned by the culture in Arpaio's lockups.

His medical specialty involved prosthetic limbs, braces, and certain kinds of compression socks used by burn victims.

"We would order them and [Sheriff Arpaio's] SWAT team would do a sweep and take everything away . . . Inmates need that, and those devices are expensive."

After three years, Dr. Wilcox was dispirited and alarmed.

The county did "nothing that was truly effective . . . because to truly fix the mismatch requires a significant investment in staff and resources . . . I felt my medical license was in jeopardy."

He resigned.

"It came to a crisis of conscience."

Deborah Braillard, mother

By the time I got arrested in 2005, I'd had eight run-ins with the law. All petty misdemeanors. You couldn't look at me like a hardened criminal. Mostly, I am helpless and hopeless. Like someone in the shadows of a comic book.

I switched off cocaine a long time ago and got into methamphetamine, which is the poor woman's way. Meth is the original sin. Left Courtney Love with the shakes and never gave any woman any better. And yet, you love meth like you love a child: without reservation.

Meth makes you feel good. For days on end. You might look like Amy Winehouse but you feel like Grace Kelly — a chatty Grace Kelly.

Consider: On September 25, 2008, the NCCHC moved beyond the censure of probation and formally revoked accreditation of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's jails going back to 2005 (when Braillard was incarcerated). Not only was the medical clinic stripped of certification, the NCCHC declared that the county had "provided false information" in pursuit of validation.

In 2008, U.S. District Judge Neil Wake found Sheriff Joe Arpaio's jail "unconstitutional" on a variety of fronts. In 2010, the 9th U.S. Circuit court of appeals upheld the ruling.

In November of this year, Maricopa County administrators discovered that Sheriff Arpaio maintained two sets of financial records. The data revealed that the sheriff misappropriated as much as $80 million that voters had earmarked for the jails. Instead of alleviating the horrendous conditions in the cells, the money was spent on the sheriff's more politically popular initiatives — like rounding up Mexican immigrants.

Deborah Braillard, mother

Arpaio and his people all say I should have told them I was a diabetic. They claim I purposely didn't speak up, so that I'd end up in the infirmary.

Imagine that. I'm wallowing in my own excrement and vomit for days on end, convulsing like the bride of Frankenstein, and if I don't confess I'm a diabetic — then I deserve to die.