‘Ignored at every turn’: Family of woman who died after allegedly being denied care on Rikers to sue city
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The family of Charizma Jones, who died after being held at Rikers Island earlier this year, plans to sue the city after the Department of Correction allegedly denied Jones medical care. AP file photo by Bebeto Matthews
By Jacob Kaye
The family of Charizma Jones, a 23-year-old woman who died after allegedly being denied medical care on Rikers Island, plans to sue the city for $50 million, according to a notice of claim.
Jones, who in July became the fourth person to die in – or having just been released from – Department of Correction custody this year, spent weeks deteriorating inside a solitary cell while DOC staff blocked her from getting medical treatment, the claim alleges. The 23-year-old, who entered Rikers Island with an extensive and well-documented history of mental illness, was only moved to a hospital after her fellow detainees begged officers to allow her to get treatment.
“Charizma Jones had diagnosed serious mental health needs, but this was ignored at every turn, and she was later placed in punitive segregation, a form of solitary confinement,” said MK Kaishian, a partner at Kaishian & Mortazavi LLC, the firm representing Jones’ family.
“This worsened her condition, which was compounded by jail staffs’ failure to provide her critical medical care,” Kaishian added. “This is a systemic failure by several agencies that culminated in Charizma’s death at just 23 years of age.”
A spokesperson for the city’s Law Department said that claim was under review.
“The death of Charizma Jones is a tragedy,” the spokesperson said. “The city will review the notice of claim.”
Jones, who took daily doses of prescribed medication for bipolar disorder, first entered Rikers Island in September 2023. According to the notice of claim, the DOC and Correctional Health Services staff were made aware of Jones’ diagnosis, as well as her history of hospitalization for her mental health diagnoses.
Around a week after she arrived to the jail complex, CHS staff allegedly referred Jones to a mental observation unit after she began to show “radical changes in behavior.”
But like thousands of other detainees on Rikers Island in 2023, the DOC failed to take Jones to a number of her medical appointments that year.
According to the claim, the DOC failed to take Jones to nearly 30 medical appointments during her incarceration.
In November 2023, Jones was moved to general housing. But her mental state hadn’t appeared to improve.
A social worker on Rikers said in his notes that Jones “presented as paranoid and possibly internally preoccupied (worried peers in cells across the room were looking at her, thus covering her cell window with soap or toothpaste; shouting in her cell and in shower at seemingly ‘someone’ but later stating she was just yelling and denied AH).”
The social worker also said that Jones had also been “noncompliant with psych meds.”
Life on Rikers got worse for Jones in April 2024, when a correctional officer allegedly got into a fight with Jones and falsely claim that Jones had assaulted her in an “unprovoked” attack, according to the claim.
Jones was rearrested and charged with a felony. In addition to getting more time added to her sentence, Jones was given a “Red ID,” a restricted status detainees are given. The young woman was also placed in punitive segregation, despite rules preventing officers from placing detainees with mental illnesses inside the segregated cells.
For over a month, Jones was allegedly on a “round-the-clock lockdown in a solitary cell.” During that time, officers also allegedly prevented health staff from checking on Jones, who had also suffered injuries during the altercation with the officer.
But during her time in the cell, her health began to worsen, her attorneys claim.
“[Jones] became ill with symptoms including stomach illness, a rash on her skin, itching, fever, and swelling,” the claim reads. “Decedent repeatedly requested medical care and such care was repeatedly delayed and/or denied by DOC employees.”
About 15 days into the lockup, CHS staff diagnosed Jones with scarlet fever. The diagnosis was allegedly made without any tests being conducted. Nonetheless, Jones was prescribed with amoxicillin and clindamycin and put back into the cell, the claim said.
On May 6, Jones’ condition had allegedly gotten so bad that she was losing skin and consciousness. Still, DOC allegedly refused to allow medical staff into the cell.
Later that morning, other detainees began to demand DOC get Jones medical attention. They eventually relented and Jones was taken to Elmhurst Hospital.
Jones was taken to two other hospitals over the next several weeks. She died at the Weill Cornell/New York Presbyterian Burn Center on July 14, several days after she had been released from DOC custody by a judge.
By July 10, the day she was released from custody, doctors determined that Jones had lost more than 65 percent of the skin on her body as a result of her condition, according to the claim.
