William Lamprecht stood earlier than the choose in a Torrington courtroom in September fearing the 4 months he was about to spend in jail would grow to be a demise sentence.
The 62-year-old man, who had been battling an alcohol and drug dependancy for years, was awaiting his destiny after pleading responsible to driving inebriated in New Milford final 12 months.
However cocaine and vodka weren’t the one issues destroying his physique — Lamprecht additionally was combating follicular lymphoma, for which he took Truxima — a drug his physician warned the courtroom may trigger immunosuppression.
“The one concern is that this — I’m a bit of scared concerning the COVID factor,” Lamprecht advised Superior Courtroom Choose Christopher Pelosi at his sentencing on Sept. 15, in keeping with courtroom transcripts from the case.
The choose replied, “I agree,” to which Lamprecht added, “I’m immunocompromised, . I’m 62 years outdated. It’s just a bit scary.”
Whereas Pelosi understood Lamprecht’s considerations about being despatched to a congregate setting throughout a lethal pandemic, the choose defined that his arms have been tied. State legislation mandates that second-time DUI offenders like Lamprecht have to be sentenced to a minimum of 4 months in jail.
However earlier than sending Lamprecht to the Division of Correction’s custody, the choose made positive the courtroom orders confirmed that Lamprecht suffered from most cancers and had a “susceptibility” to COVID.
Lamprecht was despatched to the New Haven Correctional Middle that day — the jail with the second-most COVID cases amongst DOC amenities because the onset of the pandemic.
Lamprecht’s fears have been realized barely two months later. He died alone, remoted in a hospital mattress, of COVID-19 that he contracted in one of many three prisons and jails he served time in — one in every of which is an open dorm setting, the place working towards social distancing is just about inconceivable — earlier than being transferred to the COVID unit at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Establishment. Lower than a month after his switch to MacDougall, the fourth correctional facility he’d been in since being admitted to DOC custody a month and a half earlier, Lamprecht was lifeless.
To advocates, Lamprecht’s demise is indicative of a myriad of systemic failures of the felony authorized system. However for Kenyatta Muzzanni, the director of organizing for the Katal Middle for Fairness, Well being and Justice, which has been advocating all through the pandemic for the state to launch extra folks from jail and jail to cut back the unfold of the virus, the failure begins on the system’s entrance finish, earlier than Lamprecht was even incarcerated.
“What occurred mustn’t have occurred to that man,” Muzzanni stated. “It reveals that we take extra consideration into placing folks in cages and calling that rehabilitation slightly than really serving to folks. An individual misplaced their life for a DUI. That’s unacceptable.”
Quite a few transfers
On Oct. 1, Lamprecht was transferred from the New Haven jail to Robinson Correctional Establishment in Enfield. Six days later, he was despatched to the Osborn Correctional Establishment in Somers.
In accordance with DOC data, there have been 810 instances of COVID-19 at New Haven Correctional Middle, the second-highest of any jail or jail within the system. Osborn has the fourth-highest variety of COVID instances and, as of final January, had the highest number of deaths due to the virus.
The final place Lamprecht was transferred to, on Oct. 18, was the COVID-19 medical isolation unit at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Establishment in Suffield. When he turned too unwell to be cared for there, Lamprecht was transferred to St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, the place he died on Nov. 23.
DOC spokeswoman Karen Martucci stated she couldn’t remark “instantly about anybody’s protected well being data” or reply questions on what company knew about Lamprecht’s underlying well being situation.
It’s unclear how or the place Lamprecht contracted the virus. Everybody admitted to a correctional facility is examined for the virus after they’re admitted, put in quarantine for 14 days, then examined once more earlier than they’re launched to the overall inhabitants. Martucci stated any prisoners who check constructive after the two-week quarantine at consumption are both despatched to MacDougall-Walker or remoted on the jail or jail the place they have been quarantined. The DOC did neither with Lamprecht and as a substitute transferred him to Robinson after which Osborn.
“A person’s medical want is reviewed as a part of the switch course of to make sure acceptable placement,” Martucci stated. “Osborn is an instance of a facility with an in-patient infirmary and the power to supply a excessive stage of medical care.”
DOC data point out Lamprecht was admitted to New Haven Correctional Middle on Sept. 15. Simply over two weeks later, he was transferred to Robinson Correctional Establishment.
Robinson has dormitory-style housing models. Chad Petitpas, a person who’s incarcerated there, describes the residing areas as giant sq. warehouses with about 60 bunk beds in 10 rows. Petitpas stated he has a mattress about 3.5 ft away on both sides of him, so there isn’t a approach he can socially distance, between the 2 folks within the beds to his left and proper and the person who sleeps above him. Plus, he stated, jail officers don’t implement mask-wearing within the dormitory-style residing area.
“My private area, even my bunk, I’m sharing with 5 different folks,” he stated in a telephone name from the jail. “You don’t have your personal private space.”
Martucci stated prisoners are examined earlier than they’re transferred to different correctional amenities, a safeguard to mitigate the unfold between prisons and jails. Muzzanni stated Katal is in contact with people who find themselves at the moment or have been lately incarcerated, and regardless of the DOC’s safeguards, she’s doubtful that these transfers defend the incarcerated from catching or spreading the virus.
“There isn’t a bodily distancing in a jail or a jail,” Muzzanni stated. “And so we are able to’t count on that to occur on this van switch, and it doesn’t occur after they get to the power.”
Lamprecht was the twenty second prisoner to die from COVID-19 because the onset of the pandemic. DOC officers introduced a twenty third incarcerated individual died on Dec. 13, a 51-year outdated serving a 10-year sentence.
‘There’s no sense to it’
Lamprecht, a local of Wingdale, N.Y., in Westchester County, ended up in Connecticut’s jail system after an evening of ingesting in Danbury on Feb. 21, 2020, when one other motorist noticed him driving his automobile erratically on Route 7 in New Milford and known as police.
When the officer approached his car after pulling him over, Lamprecht rolled down his window and thanked the officer for stopping him, in keeping with the police report.
“I’ve been ingesting,” Lamprecht admitted, informing the officer he’d consumed a bottle of vodka and used cocaine that evening. He agreed to take a discipline sobriety check.
Lamprecht began to carry out the stroll and switch check, however rapidly misplaced his stability, stopped, and advised the officer, “There’s no sense to it. I’m all f…d up.”
On the police station, Lamprecht took a breathalyzer check that learn 0.1005%, effectively over the state’s authorized restrict of 0.08%. He was charged with DUI and launched after delivering his license and paying a $1,000 bond.
At Lamprecht’s preliminary courtroom look, state prosecutor Jonathan Knight filed a doc indicating Lamprecht was a two-time DUI offender. He had been convicted of DUI in November 2014 in Newburg, N.Y., in keeping with courtroom data.
The earlier conviction in Newburg meant that Lamprecht was dealing with a compulsory jail sentence below a state statute that requires anybody convicted twice for a DUI inside 10 years to be “imprisoned no more than two years, 120 consecutive days of which is probably not suspended or diminished in any method.”
Lamprecht would face that mandatory-minimum sentence until the state’s legal professional diminished or dismissed the cost.
Litchfield State’s Legal professional Daybreak Gallo stated this week she has “reviewed this case, and might say that the prosecutor who dealt with the file exercised a substantial quantity of discretion by requesting solely the minimal necessary quantity of incarceration mandated by statute, in mild of the defendant’s prior document and historical past of substance use.”
“Individuals who drive inebriated and cocaine pose a considerable danger of significant harm and demise to each citizen on the roads of our state,” Gallo stated. “That stated, the Litchfield State’s Legal professional’s Workplace extends its deepest condolences to the Lamprecht household.”
Muzzanni stated Lamprecht shouldn’t have been despatched to jail for a DUI, contemplating his medical wants, the jail system’s strained health care services, the rising an infection price within the state’s prisons and jails and the low vaccination price amongst DOC employees. As an alternative, Muzzanni stated, Lamprecht ought to have been provided therapy locally.
“That’s the place there’s a significant system failure, the place we simply lock folks away as a substitute of really getting them the assistance that they want,” she stated.
Choose Pelosi referred to state legislation when he handed down the sentence.
“So , Mr. Lamprecht, it’s 120 days necessary that the Courtroom can’t droop,” Pelosi stated.
The choose then added that on the mittimus — a doc the courtroom provides to DOC outlining the sentence — courtroom officers would spotlight Lamprecht’s want for medical consideration as a result of he was being handled for most cancers and was inclined to COVID.
In a telephone interview, Robert Lamprecht acknowledged that his brother had been out and in of hassle his entire life, however he by no means brought on anybody any bodily hurt.
“If he had harm anyone, any violence or something, he would have needed to undergo the implications,” Robert Lamprecht stated. “However I believe with this, it’s only a disgrace … it wasn’t an actual critical offense.”
Lamprecht stated he doesn’t blame the sentencing choose for his brother’s demise.
“They gotta comply with the legislation, and I respect that,” he stated. “So, it’s a matter of coverage. Perhaps they only haven’t provide you with a coverage to cowl the particular circumstances with the COVID.”
Problem sustaining restoration
Lamprech tried to beat his demons after his 2020 arrest.
Courtroom data present that he enrolled in a program on the Lexington Middle for Restoration in Dover Plains, N.Y., for a minimum of six months after his arrest. He had handed weekly drug and alcohol checks since a minimum of January 2021, apart from one time in February the place he examined constructive for each cocaine and alcohol.
His social employee, Judith Mueller, wrote in her final report that Lamprecht had “ideas of indulging in his dependancy usually.”
However Mueller stated he “is studying to maneuver excessive danger ideas to impartial ideas of a unique topic.” She additionally wrote that Lamprecht was recurrently attending 12-step conferences and had an Alcoholics Nameless sponsor.
She concluded her evaluation saying, “Shopper is having problem sustaining restoration and would profit by attending an in-patient, specialised therapy program.”
In the meantime, throughout that time-frame, Lamprecht had eight courtroom appearances in Torrington whereas additionally battling well being points.
He missed a courtroom date final summer season, inflicting the choose to subject a re-arrest warrant that may have revoked his bond. Nevertheless, public defender Mark Johnson, who was representing Lamprecht, knowledgeable the choose the subsequent day that his shopper had been unwell and couldn’t make it to courtroom.
The choose rescinded the warrant, and Lamprecht pleaded responsible on June 29, figuring out that he was now dealing with the necessary jail time period.
‘Hope that his time goes swiftly’
At his sentencing, public defender William Schofield advised the choose he had mentioned the pre-sentence report with Lamprecht. Schofield stated he additionally submitted medical data of Lamprecht’s most cancers remedies.
Schofield stated that Lamprecht was attempting exhausting to beat the addictions that he had been combating his entire life.
“I do consider he’s honest in his makes an attempt and is engaged on this system. I’ve spoken to his AA sponsor, who can be current within the courtroom, Choose. He does have sources and he’s making use of them,” Schofield stated. “And I hope that his time goes swiftly and safely contemplating his medical situation.”
Given a chance to handle the courtroom earlier than his sentencing, Lamprecht advised the choose he understood the actions he’d taken to place himself on this place and what he needed to do.
“I need to get this previous me,” he stated. “I need to handle it.”
In Could 2021, Lamprecht had accomplished a three-week, in-patient drug rehab program via the Phelps Hospital in Tarrytown, N.Y.
