“Pretrial detainees are treated like convicted prisoners,” Clifford Jack Palacios added.
He previously sued the department and some of its officials in federal court, accusing them of failing to provide medical care, failing to protect, failing to maintain safe premises, and failing to investigate.
Palacios also alleged that he sustained a head injury when another inmate threw a water bottle at him in January.
After he was released from detention, he dropped the civil action he filed in federal court.
Palacios was arrested in November 2019 after he was accused of making 36 transactions amounting to $15,614 through Western Union using his employer’s debit card.
The Attorney General’s Office charged Palacios with 36 counts of misuse of financial instruments. That case is still pending in Superior Court.
In an email to Variety on Thursday, Palacios said he was “locked for four months in a cell that had no access to sink water, which is mandatory for hygiene purposes and it is a violation for pretrial detainees to suffer any hardships.”
In his case, he added, “I had to sneak a one-gallon container in my room so I could be going to the shower to fill it. And the shower is a push button which gives a small amount every few seconds.”
Palacios said pretrial detainees are treated like convicted prisoners. “They have little or no movement — it is an environment that promotes anxiety and depression,” he said.
He said he was detained in the “maximum” area. “The guy that threw me a water bottle despite two previous altercations should have been the one placed there. But his brother works there. So officers treated the situation differently,” Palacios said.
He added that government officials should be “strong enough to fix that situation” at Corrections.
Variety failed to get a statement from the department.
