The sister of a Middletown woman who died in the Orange County jail last year has accused a medical vendor of medical malpractice.
Layla Capaci claims that Wellpath NY and Orange County corrections officers ignored critical information about inmate Niki Capaci and failed to give her appropriate medical treatment, in a complaint filed on June 17 in U.S. District Court, White Plains.
“Defendants’ willful withholding of proper medical care and treatment with regard to Ms. Capaci’s opiate withdrawal during a critical period,” the complaint states, “caused her to suffer cruel and unusual treatment that directly resulted in her untimely death.”
County Attorney Richard B. Golden said the county disputes the allegations and will vigorously defend the jailers. Attempts to contact a Wellpath spokesman in Nashville, Tennessee, to ask for the company’s side of the story, failed.
Niki Capaci was 40 when she died in the jail on May 6, 2023. She had trained and worked as a registered nurse, according to her obituary, and she left seven children.
The county medical examiner determined from an autopsy that the death was due to acute drug intoxication, including fentanyl (synthetic opioid), Â xylazine (veterinary tranquilizer often mixed with fentanyl), chlordiazepoxide (anti-anxiety drug) and diazepam (sedative), according to the complaint. The manner of death was ruled an “accident (substance abuse).”
She was jailed on May 3, 2023 for violation of probation. She was found in general good health in the initial screening, the complaint states, but multiple injection sites were seen on her right hip and she reported using heroin earlier that day.
Later that day she asked to be taken to the medical clinic staffed by Wellpath. She was placed on Special Watch, a protocol that requires a patient to be monitored every 15 minutes for signs of drug withdrawal.
According to the complaint, jailers logged numerous observations of Capaci but failed to note her behavior, even as cameras purportedly recorded her condition steadily worsening.
Capaci was taken to the clinic numerous times as she deteriorated. She was repeatedly given buprenorphine, even after she allegedly told the medical staff that she could not tolerate the detoxification drug.
She was given an anti-anxiety drug, chlordiazepoxide, the complaint states, though it is not meant to treat withdrawal from heroin, can cause fatal side effects if not monitored properly, and is inappropriate for someone like Capaci who had asthma.
Her condition steadily worsened: nausea, vomiting, dry heaves, sweating, anxiety, hallucinations, diarrhea, dehydration, chest pains, tremors. Eventually, camera footage allegedly shows, she was so weak that she could not walk or stand up straight, and she had to be taken by wheelchair to the clinic.
On her last clinic visit, around 1:43 a.m. on May 6, 2023, Capaci was given another dose of chlordiazepoxide, according to the complaint, and around 2 a.m. she was taken back to her cell in a semi-conscious state.
Four hours later she was found dead in her cell.
Capaci’s medical condition was not assessed properly, according to the complaint, and when her vomiting could not be alleviated she should have been transferred to a hospital.
Layla Capaci is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, on behalf of her sister’s estate and next of kin.
