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The state is poised to pay out approximately $75,000 to the family of an inmate with a history of suicide attempts and mental health problems who killed himself at Halawa Correctional Facility six days after he reported being raped by his cellmate. Read more

The state is poised to pay out approximately $75,000 to the family of an inmate with a history of suicide attempts and mental health problems who killed himself at Halawa Correctional Facility six days after he reported being raped by his cellmate.

On March 11, 2013, 32-year-old Jonathan Ibana covered the window of his Halawa prison cell with toilet paper and wrote “using toilet” on it to prevent anyone from looking in.

About 25 minutes later, employees found him hanging by the neck from a noose made from his bed sheet.

Helen Coma, Ibana’s mother, filed a civil lawsuit against the state for not preventing his suicide. Prison workers failed to provide him with safe custody, proper medical and mental health treatment and proper housing placement given that he was known to be at risk of killing himself, according to the complaint.

The settlement agreement, which was submitted by the state Department of the Attorney General to the Legislature for approval, comes at a time when state lawmakers are considering establishing a commission to oversee Hawaii’s jails and prisons, in part because of ongoing suicides in state correctional facilities and a lack of transparency about whether internal policies and procedures are being followed by the Department of Public Safety to prevent them.

More than two dozen inmates have killed themselves in Hawaii jails and prisons since 2010, according to DPS.

Ibana had a history of threatening and attempting suicide and was described as suffering from “mental retardation, bipolar disorder, severe depression … and hallucinations.” He was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia, according to court documents filed on behalf of the plaintiff.

Ibana was flagged as a suicide risk as soon as he was arrested in 2001, at the age of 21, for attempted murder and sexual assault when he tried to stab his then-underage girlfriend. During screening, Kauai police found that he had tried to hang himself five years prior.

Ibana was repeatedly placed on suicide watch throughout his incarceration. In 2001, records show, he claimed that “spirits are going to kill him by hitting his head against the wall,” and later that year he was caught tying elastic around his neck. From 2006 to 2008 he repeatedly threatened to harm himself, according to court records, and at one point wrote a note saying “he wanted to hurt himself because he did not want to be in prison anymore, he wanted to be with Jesus.”

In 2010, Ibana was observed banging his head against the wall multiple times.

By the time he was transferred back to Halawa prison on Oahu in June 2010, Ibana had attempted to kill himself 15 times, according to court records that reference a report from a prison psychologist social worker.

Ibana also reported being sexually assaulted by other inmates multiple times while incarcerated at out-of-state facilities and in Hawaii. He was raped twice in 2007 while at Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Mississippi, once in 2008 while at Saguaro Correctional Center in Arizona, once in 2012 at Halawa prison and again on March 5, 2013, six days before he died, according to court documents. He had become suicidal after each incident, although he denied being depressed after the final assault.

Ibana was evaluated by multiple mental health staff while at the Halawa prison. His last evaluation came two days after he reported being raped in March 2013. He was given Risperdal, an anti-psychotic medication, and Halawa prison staff were ordered to monitor his behavior.

Ibana should have been placed on suicide watch after the last sexual assault but instead was put in an isolated cell under protective custody “without proper monitoring,” contrary to the prison’s own policies, according to the complaint.

The state, in response to the lawsuit, argued that Ibana admitted requesting to be placed on suicide watch in order to be moved from the Special Holding Unit to the infirmary and had threatened to kill himself on numerous occasions to “manipulate others.”

“Ibana had been in and out of suicide watch several times in the months preceding his death, without incident, lending credence to his admission that his expressed suicidal ideations were made up,” the state said.

The state said Halawa prison psychiatrists met with Ibana several times in February 2013 and determined he was stable enough to be released from suicide watch.

In addition to approximately $75,000 in state funds, Global Medical Staffing, which employed the psychiatrist who discharged Ibana from suicide watch prior to his death, is to pay an additional $25,100, making the total settlement $100,000.