Kelsey Hess

The Republic | azcentral.com

On its face, the case involving a Maricopa County inmate whose family sued Sheriff Joe Arpaio was like many of the others that have colored Arpaio's 21 years in office: the inmate appeared impaired or mentally ill when he was brought to jail by a local police agency. He resisted the commands of detention officers who then engaged him in a fight. And he recounted the experience in horrific detail to family members who sought justice through the court system when he died.

Although the case of 36-year-old resident Eric Vogel shared many of those characteristics, it had one key difference in the eyes of sheriff's officials: Vogel died nearly three weeks later. He suffered a fatal heart attack at his home hours after he ran away from a Phoenix police officer who was investigating a minor car accident.

Vogel's family claimed the abuse he suffered at the hands of sheriff's detention officers — some of which came when he was stripped and forced into jail-issued pink underwear — fueled a mistrust of law enforcement that prompted Vogel to run from the Phoenix police officer who was investigating a car crash involving Vogel's mother.

The family filed a lawsuit in 2002 accusing Arpaio's detention officers and jail administrators of deliberate indifference to his medical condition and cruel and unusual punishment for the way officers forced Vogel into the pink underwear. The case wended through state and federal court systems for more than a decade before coming to an end Wednesday morning when the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors agreed to pay $240,000 to Vogel's family.

"We settled because it was in the best interest of taxpayers," said Cari Gerchick, a Maricopa County spokeswoman.

The ties between Vogel's death on Dec.8, 2001, and his treatment in jail weeks earlier might seem distant, but Joel Robbins, an attorney representing Vogel's family, said there was a definite link between the way detention officer's treated Vogel and his decision to run from police when he was confronted with the possibility of returning to jail.

"The initial triggering problem is the agony he went through, which was forcibly being stripped naked (in jail), while he believed he was being raped, while he's screaming he's being raped," Robbins said. "As a taxpayer, I want my detention officers to understand that sometimes people mentally can't tell what's happening to them in jail. That created a real stress on him. When he believed he was going to be handcuffed and taken to the jail, he ran and died of a heart attack."

Vogel was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a Phoenix police officer and was taken to jail in November 2001. He immediately began showing signs of distress, telling detention officers they were going to rape him, court records say.

When officers had Vogel strip and put on the sheriff's standard-issue pink underwear a day later, Vogel believed his fears were about to be confirmed, according to a complaint his family filed in U.S. District Court. Vogel told his family that he resisted the officers' attempts to strip him and put on the pink underwear and that the officers "slammed him to the ground and tried to handcuff him," the complaint says.

After Vogel was released, he went to live with his mother, court records say, but the events left him traumatized. He was riding in a car with his mother when she was involved in the wreck, and the presence of police officers at that scene rekindled those fears, his family says.

The following morning, Vogel was found dead in his room from what the Medical Examiner's Office determined was a heart attack.

"Essentially, Mr. Vogel died of a heart attack caused by the stress and intense trauma triggered by the November 12, 2001 beating at the County Jail," the complaint says.

The lawsuit, filed by Vogel's mother and taken over by his sister after his mother died, moved through state and federal courts for more than a decade.

A federal jury ruled in favor of the Sheriff's Office in February 2010, but a federal appeals court reversed the decision in December.

Jack MacIntyre, a director with the Sheriff's Office, said he thought judges erred in overturning the verdict because that decision was based in part on testimony from Vogel's sister that concerned his state of mind when he fled from Phoenix police, and there were questions about whether she could prove they had that conversation.

Regardless, MacIntyre said, Vogel was running from Phoenix police before he suffered his heart attack, not the Sheriff's Office.

"I don't think the Sheriff's Office did anything wrong nor were they liable," MacIntyre said. "Sometimes, business decisions are made and I think that's what (county) Risk Management did."

Inmates who are taken to Maricopa County jails undergo a more strenuous screening now than in 2001, which could help correctional health workers identify mentally ill inmates and steer them toward physicians and psychiatrists, but Robbins said little has changed in the way detention officers deal with inmates.

Vogel's family fought through the courts for more than a decade in the hopes that the case would force some fundamental change in the agency, Robbins said.

"We're happy it was resolved and we hope that the Sheriff's Office, rather than spending money like this in the future, changes the way they do business," Robbins said. "Sometimes, it's better to bring medication to the mentally ill person than to try to force the mentally ill person to do things they just can't do. This is not like some kind of highly technical requirement that no one would understand. This is just basic common sense and human decency."

The Associated Press contributed to this article.