Families raising concerns over Armor Correctional Health’s ability to care for SWFL inmates

An inmate’s death at the Lee County Jail sparks questions about the kind and quality of medical care the inmates at the jail are receiving.

In November, 30-year-old Michael Carbone died in the Lee County Jail medical ward. His father, Paul Carbone, says Michael should have been taken to the hospital.

Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno addressed the death in a news conference saying the jail dedicates the resources necessary for inmates to receive the “highest level of care.”

Paul Carbone believes doctors and nurses at the Lee County Jail failed his son. He believes they are why his son died of a bacterial infection that spread to his heart.

“My son was there almost seven days at the county jail. They said he came in in medical distress, and instead of taking him to the hospital, they left him in his cell in the medical ward to die,” said Carbone.

Armor Correctional Health provides medical care at the Lee County Jail.

The sheriff said he’s investigating Michael Carbone’s death, but it’s clear Paul Carbone is not alone in his anger with Armor.

WINK News ran a quick google search and found several lawsuits naming Armor Correctional Health.

Carbone said he did the exact search. “There’s just pages and pages of lawsuits against them.”

WINK News found 36 federal lawsuits against Armor Correctional Health related to improper medical care leading to inmate injuries or deaths and discovered an open lawsuit filed in Southwest Florida.

Timothy Kusma’s family, like Carbone, claims their son should still be alive.

Kusma was arrested for driving with a suspended license. He spent nearly two weeks in Naples Jail Center before dying of complications from diabetes.

The lawsuit argues Armor Health doctors and nurses failed to give him the insulin he needed or take him to the hospital until it was too late.

Carbone finds no comfort knowing other families are suffering like he is. “Even though he had problems and stuff in life and you know may have had some addiction problems in his life, he was still a person. He still did not deserve to die on a jail floor.”

Armor Health took over health care at the Lee County Jail a month before Michael Carbone died.

The sheriff’s office is paying them more than $24 million taxpayer dollars over the next three years.

An Armor Health spokesman sent a statement:

As for Timothy Kusma, after a thorough investigation, Armor Health found “our care did not cause his death.”

The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office cut ties with Armor Health after 23-year-old Anthony Fennick died in its jail.

Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said, “after reviewing the evidence available to me at this point, I am not satisfied with how armor acted and how they have responded to this tragedy.”

A report from the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office says Fennick died from a stroke caused by chronic dehydration. Investigators traced that dehydration to an allergic reaction to a medicine someone with Armor Health prescribed.

The report concludes Armor Medical had “significant procedural problems.”

In a medical review, an independent doctor wrote, ‘The care provided when Anthony began seizing was problematic in that the nurse who administered the IV did not appear to have the necessary equipment to do so.

“I don’t believe they have kept their promise to the sheriff’s office or to our inmates,” said Sheriff Staly.

It was a similar story in Lake County. The sheriff’s office there dropped Armor Health after multiple inmates died during drug withdrawal.

Carbone said, “I feel that because of their incarceration they are looked at as a lower level or a nobody to society that nobody is going to pay attention to.”

WINK News asked the Lee County Sheriff’s Office why they chose to hire Armor Health despite these past allegations.

LSCO said it considered a number of companies, all of which had “positive and negative events while providing inmate healthcare to correctional facilities throughout the nation.”

In the end, the sheriff’s office said Armor Health was the best fit.

Lee County Sheriff Marceno says his office is investigating Michael Carbone’s death.

LCSO offered this statement:

“In October of 2021, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office’s contract for inmate healthcare with WellPath expired.

Before that deadline, Sheriff Carmine Marceno sought Requests for Proposals (RFPs) from a number of companies that provide inmate healthcare.

Because inmate healthcare involves millions of taxpayer dollars each year, we used the competitive RFP process, and retained the Gehring Group (experts in inmate healthcare), to assist us in selecting an inmate healthcare provider.

With assistance from the Gehring Group, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office conducted a thorough vetting process into the several inmate healthcare companies who submitted their proposals to become LCSO’s inmate healthcare provider.

All the companies involved had experienced positive and negative events while providing inmate healthcare to correctional facilities throughout the nation, during the preceding decades.

These positive and negative events – along with the various companies’ size, resources, financial capabilities, and recent experiences with other correctional institutions – were considered as part of the selection process.

At the conclusion of the review, the Gehring Group and LCSO’s Correctional Bureau recommended Armor Health be selected as LCSO’s inmate correctional healthcare provider.

Armor Health began their services on Oct. 1, 2021.”