Editor’s note: This story contains reporting on suicides, a topic that may be disturbing to some readers.
Eleven deaths at the county jail, a subsequent lawsuit and criminal charges against an employee proved too much for an insurance company to keep the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office as a client.
The Rockingham County Board of Commissioners had warned the sheriff that if this were to happen, it would place an increased financial burden on taxpayers.
But now it’s too late.
On Tuesday, Rockingham County Safety and Risk Manager Chris Elliott wrote to Sheriff Sam Page that the sheriff’s office will lose its insurance on July 1.
Page recently lost the Republican primary for lieutenant governor of North Carolina. He considered running against Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger for his seat in the Legislature, but decided to stay in the lieutenant governor’s race. Both Page and Berger are from Eden.
“Today I received notice from Travelers (Companies) that they would not be renewing our law enforcement liability insurance coverage,” Elliott wrote to Page in an email obtained by The News & Observer. “I worked with the sheriff’s staff today to complete a law enforcement insurance application and send it to other potential insurance companies.
“I wanted to let everyone know what was going on regarding Travelers’ refusal to report on the sheriff and his operations.”
Records obtained by the N&O through public records requests show that Rockingham County officials first learned of the potential loss of insurance coverage in mid-May and have been fighting to keep it ever since.
Why are officials saying the insurance is being revoked?
On May 20, all five Rockingham County commissioners sent Page a letter saying the insurance was at risk for three reasons:
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Failure to report claims or potential claims;
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Criminal prosecution against an employee;
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Information that came to light in the lawsuit about another employee who, according to the letter, was fired for “sexual relations with inmates outside the prison.”
They asked Page to take corrective action and appear before them to report how he plans to address the concerns. That has yet to happen.
The sheriff’s office was contacted by the N&O and referred all comments to Elliott.
Elliott, along with Rockingham County Manager Lance Metzler, spoke to The N&O on Tuesday morning before hearing the insurance company’s final decision.
“It’s not a good sign when you get something like this,” Elliott told The N&O about the warning letter they received on May 9.
He added that if one of the nation’s largest insurance companies denies coverage, it is not clear who will offer insurance instead. And whatever happens, he said, it will increase the county’s costs.
“This is a huge deal,” Elliott said Tuesday morning.
In Elliott’s Tuesday email, copied to Metzler, he added that Travelers noted the county’s “excellent track record on the other lines of coverage” and agreed to maintain the county’s insurance for all other liability policies.
Travelers also agreed to keep sheriff’s vehicles under the county’s motor vehicle policy, but would increase the deductible from $1,000 per accident to $2,500 per accident.
The county has until July 1 to find new coverage for the sheriff’s office.
Deaths, lawsuits and arrests
Elliott first warned Page in a May 17 email about the possibility of losing his and his office’s insurance, records show.
“They are not happy with the history of deaths in our prison and the Kepley family’s recent lawsuit has brought his case and many others from the past to light,” Elliott wrote in that email.
The Kepley family is suing after Kyle Kepley, 35, died by suicide in prison. The lawsuit alleges that the jail was notified multiple times that Kepley was at risk of suicide, but left him alone for more than an hour, giving him enough time to commit suicide. The lawsuit also alleges that the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services notified the prison that it failed to comply with the state law on observation rounds.
Kepley was one of five inmates to die by suicide in the past three years. The deaths of the other six inmates resulted from three drug overdoses, two heart conditions and an unspecified medical condition. One of the women who died of a drug overdose had drugs hidden in her body.
In Elliott’s May 17 email, he notified Page that two of the defendants in the Kepley family lawsuit have been dismissed: one for sexual assault and battery and the other for sex with inmates.
Captain Marcus Shane Bullins was fired from the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office after Stokes County deputies arrested Bullins and charged him with four counts of assault on a female and two counts of sexual assault.
Elliott also noted in his email to Page that while one incident did not make the news, they had also fired another detention officer for “sexual relations with inmates outside the jail.” Elliott received this information from a “claims expert/attorney” during an investigation into a claim, he wrote.
Days after the email was sent, Rockingham County deputies announced in a news release that they had also fired Neletta Davis-Barnette, a third-party detention officer accused of providing contraband to an inmate. A news release from the sheriff’s office said an investigation began in January and Davis-Barnette was released in March.
Elliott told Page in his May 17 email that in reviewing the claims information provided by the insurance company, he found several incidents that county officials, including himself, had not been informed of. He said this prevented him from fulfilling his own reporting duties for safety compliance and insurance purposes.
“I want to ensure that Travelers know that any incident related to a death or employment issue will be reported to them,” Elliott wrote.
The commissioners also addressed this in their letter to Page, saying both Elliott and county officials are just becoming aware of some of the incidents cited by Travelers. And they said commissioners and county staff had told Page and his staff several times in recent years to make sure they were notified of potential claims.
Elliott provided reporting practices recommended by the district attorney when there is an inmate injury or death or when there are employment practices that could lead to legal action.
These include notifying the district manager, district attorney and risk manager and maintaining records related to jail bookings, officer rounds, calls to paramedics and videos from jail cameras.
Elliott, who serves on the board of directors of the North Carolina Public Risk Management Association, said he cannot recall another sheriff’s office having its insurance revoked in his 24-year career.
“I’m shocked,” Elliott said.
