A lawsuit filed in federal court this month claims a mentally ill man incapacitated by traumatic brain injury wasn’t assessed for mental illness, nor given seizure medication, and was only discharged from the Randall County jail when it came time to pay his hospital bill.

The complaint filed on behalf of the estate of Wendell Carl Simmons, now deceased, claims that inadequately trained jailers did not take steps to prevent Simmons from being harmed by others or harming himself. It names Randall County Sheriff Joel Richardson, 16 officers and health care provider Correct Care Solutions as defendants in the suit.

Simmons was admitted to the jail June 16, 2014, to await arraignment in court after he was arrested for a lack of driver’s license and insurance as well as a failure to vaccinate and leash his pets.

“Under the Constitution, they are required to take care of you, and I don’t think they took care of him,” said Damon Richards, an attorney for the Simmons family.

Numerous allegations are made that paint a portrait of a failure of medical care. The complaint states that Simmons’ daughter, Nikki, called a nurse, Jennifer Gardner, to make sure Simmons was given his medication for grand mal seizures. An alcohol withdrawal assessment was made, and Simmons was given Librium and Phimine, but Richards said the regimen was never finished.

Richards said that Simmons was never given the seizure medication and was never brought before a magistrate judge for arraignment as required by Article 15.17 of the Texas code of criminal procedure.

On the third day, Simmons started acting oddly. The complaint states that Simmons tried to go to booking twice, but sat down when told to by officers. At 9:15 p.m. June 19, 2014, Simmons was standing in a shower and officers asked what he was doing. Simmons replied, “the lady in the dress told me to find that person,” and when asked “what lady,” he pointed to the shower curtain.

The next day, Simmons had fallen and had a bloody lip and said he “was in the outhouse and fell,” the suit says, and on June 21 he was found talking to people that were not there, according to the complaint

Officer Mixon noted on that same day that Simmons was talking to non-existent people, was confused and was pacing around the cell on a small ledge. When Simmons stepped off the ledge and landed face first onto the metal grate over the drain on the floor, Mixon said it appeared to be completely accidental.

“He is showing these crazy tendencies that he is confused and falling and talking to people that weren’t there,” Richards said. “If somebody said something at the time, they may have been able to do something. Other officers were saying that he dove off the ledge and hit his head on the ground. Mixon was watching him and wrote that it looked like the fall was entirely an accident.”

Richards said that the cell that Simmons was in had video cameras in it, but that he was denied access to the video files.

The attorney also said that correctional officers were aware of these actions by the notes taken in the jail’s observation forms.

He also said that the records of Simmons’ pretrial detainment are littered with late entries, some five to six days after an incident.

Simmons was admitted to Northwest Texas Hospital on June 21 for a “brain bleed,” a laceration to his spleen, three broken ribs and lacerations across multiple portions of his face. He was discharged by magistrate judge Don Connelly to “make payment arrangements” before he had a craniotomy the next day, according to the complaint.

“The people at Northwest Texas Hospital said his injuries looked like he had been assaulted,” Richards said. “Then immediately when he gets to the hospital, the judge orders him to be released, and if they didn’t release him from custody, Randall County would have to pay his medical bills.”

Simmons spent weeks in the hospital for the brain injury and was moved around over the next 10 months while being cared for by Texas Tech Physicians, Plum Creek Healthcare Center, Vibra Rehabilitation Hospital and Integra Care.

He died on April “without ever regaining his ability to walk, regain competency or participate in any meaningful activity.”

His autopsy listed “post-traumatic seizure disorder due to blunt force injuries of the head” as the cause of death.

“Correct Care Solutions was in charge of his medical care, and you are supposed to send him for a psych evaluation while he was there. They never did that,” Richards said. “You don’t pay some tickets for your dogs running at large, go to jail and end up dead.”

The Randall County District Attorney’s office declined to comment due to the ongoing lawsuit.