Inmate beating suit settled

YOUNGSTOWN — Settling a lawsuit by an inmate who was twice beaten by Mahoning County deputy sheriffs in the county jail is cheaper than defending the county and the eight former deputies he sued, an assistant county prosecutor said.

On the same day a judge freed Tawhon Easterly from state prison, where he had served time for his role in a homicide, Easterly signed a $65,000 agreement settling the civil lawsuits he had filed against the county and its employees in the two beatings.

“It was a good settlement in light of the costs of defense,” said Gina DeGenova Bricker, assistant county prosecutor.

Under the settlement terms, “He can never refile any of these suits again. It’s over,” Bricker said Wednesday.

Prosecutor Paul Gains publicly disclosed the settlement Wednesday during a prosecutor’s office budget hearing before the county commissioners.

Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court released Easterly from the Belmont Correctional Institution, where he was 11 months away from completing a nine-year sentence on involuntary manslaughter and felonious assault charges with firearms specifications.

Judge Sweeney put him on five years of community control by the Adult Parole Authority, after his lawyer, J. Gerald Ingram, requested his release. Ingram said Easterly had obtained his high school equivalency diploma in prison and intended to enroll at Youngstown State University after his release.

If he violates the terms of his community control, the judge said she’d sent him back to prison for the remaining 11 months, followed by five years of post-release control.

Easterly, 27, agreed to settle state and federal civil lawsuits against the county commissioners and sheriff’s department, Sheriff Randall Wellington and eight former sheriff’s deputies in connection with beatings Easterly received from several deputies on Dec. 28, 2001, while he was a pretrial detainee.

The settlement, signed Nov. 28 by Easterly and Bricker, said a $65,000 check, jointly payable to Easterly and Ingram, would be sent to Ingram.

The former deputies listed as defendants in the suits are Michael J. Budd, a former major; William E. DeLuca, a former sergeant; Ronald Denson, a former corporal, all are now in federal prisoners; Ryan Strange of Montgomery, Ala., Montgomery Community Corrections; Mark Dixon of Columbiana County Jail; John Rivera and Raymond Hull, both of Youngstown; and Ronald Kaschak of Austintown.

All were convicted of criminal charges. Kaschak was given probation, but all the others were sentenced   to serve various terms of incarceration. Dixon is awaiting a Jan. 8 trial before Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Plea Court on an unrelated sexual battery charge that alleges he had a female inmate engage in sexual activity with him in Mahoning County Jail in November 2002.

Easterly filed the state lawsuit, which sought more than $900,000 in compensation, in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, while he was an inmate at the Trumbull Correctional Institution. In that complaint, Easterly   alleged that Hull, Dixon and Strange beat him after he was identified as having hit a female deputy.

Budd later passed orders through DeLuca and Denson that Easterly was to be beaten a second time and “put in the hospital” as punishment for hitting the female deputy, the suit said, adding that Hull, Dixon, Rivera and Kaschak then beat him.