Attorneys seek records in detainee death

PROVIDENCE—An attorney for the family of an immigrant who died at a Rhode Island detention center has asked a judge to order jail officials to provide records to help them investigate whether the man was mistreated.

But time is critical - potential witnesses include other immigrant detainees facing possible deportation, some of whom have already been relocated to other states, the lawyer said at a hearing Wednesday in Providence Superior Court.

Jack McConnell, a volunteer attorney representing the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, requested 55 different categories of documents from the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facilty. McConnell said he needs the material to depose potential witnesses and prepare a lawsuit on behalf of the widow of detainee Hiu Lui “Jason” Ng, who died in August.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed all of its 153 detainees from the jail on Monday pending an investigation of Ng’s death, so the potential witnesses are now scattered at other
facilities across the region, the attorney said.

Jeffrey Techentin, an attorney representing Wyatt, told Judge Patricia Hurst that the facility needs ICE’s permission to release detainee names and other records surrounding Ng’s case.

Ng, who overstayed a visa after coming to the U.S. from China, was diagnosed with cancer just before he died of complications from the disease. His family says the 34-year-old was mistreated at
Wyatt when employees failed to take him to scheduled diagnostic exams before his cancer was discovered.

They also said through attorneys that Wyatt employees denied Ng the use of a wheelchair while he was in excruciating back pain.

A spokesman for the jail, which also holds other types of state and federal inmates in its 711 beds, has said Ng was never mistreated before his death.

The ACLU fears procedural delays from the state court case to access records could wreck its ability to find other immigrant detainee witnesses and record their accounts of what happened.

“They could be highly relevant witnesses to what appears to be the torture of an innocent man,“ McConnell said after court. “This is about the widow’s entitlement to know what killed her husband.“

Though the documents were kept at Wyatt, the federal government really controls them and whether they’re disseminated, Techentin told Hurst.

He said he had forwarded the request to ICE. ICE has begun reviewing the request and considers it a “top priority,“ according to a letter the agency sent to Techentin that he read in court.

“We haven’t received a response yay or nay, and without that response we can’t release the records,“ he said.

Hurst said she wouldn’t “leapfrog” over the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE. But she needed more information from both sides before making any ruling.

Attorneys have three weeks to submit additional material, and the next hearing is scheduled for Jan. 29.