The mother of a man who died in his cell at the Broome County jail last year claims neglect and missteps by the jail’s medical contractor led to her son’s death.

In an April lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, Rose Carter, the mother of Salladin P. Barton, says her son “died an absolutely inhumane and preventable death” on Jan. 14, 2015, brought on by untreated pneumonia and two drugs that should not have been prescribed together.

The suit names Broome County Sheriff David Harder and jail administrator Mark Smolinsky, as well as Correctional Medical Care Inc., of Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, its president and CEO, and six nurses employed by CMC at the jail.

Barton, who was 35 at the time, was found on the floor of his cell by corrections officers performing an inmate count at about 3 p.m. that afternoon in January. Harder told reporters that a medical alarm was sounded but efforts to revive Barton with CPR failed.

Barton had been incarcerated since June 10, 2013, on a probation violation, as well as felony counts of robbery and grand larceny. He was being held pending trial or a release order, Harder said at the time.

Carter, acting as administrator of Barton’s estate, had filed suit in March 2015 in Broome County Supreme Court. That case was dismissed in May of this year because of the pending federal lawsuit.

The county court filing named Correctional Medical Care Inc. but not the employees listed in the federal lawsuit, and didn’t make any allegations about CMC’s role in Barton’s death. The federal suit, brought by Albany attorney Elmer Robert Keach, claims CMC staff prescribed two contra-indicated drugs, ignored Barton when he showed symptoms of toxic levels of exposure, including “delirious and suicidal behavior,” and left his pneumonia untreated.

CMC, the suit claims, “through express policy, practices and/or the inactions of its policy makers, had a policy and/or practice of not providing appropriate medical care to detainees at the Broome County jail and many other local jails.”

CMC operates jail medical services at 12 sites in New York, including in Broome and Tioga counties. The CMC jails have an average daily inmate population of more than 5,500. The company had $32 million in contracts as of 2014, according to figures in a report from the attorney general’s office.

Broome County is in the final year of a three-year, $9 million contract with CMC for jail medical services.

According to an autopsy report included in the court documents, Barton died from acute Artane intoxication, and also suffered from pneumonia. Artane is a Parkinson’s medicine that treats spasms. He also was taking the antipsychotic Prolixin.

“Deaths have been associated with Artane overdose when combined with other central nervous system depressants (i.e., Prolixin), or with a compromised respiratory system (i.e., pneumonia),” the autopsy report states.

One screening found evidence of opioids in his system, but another did not.

In May, Broome’s county attorney answered the complaint on behalf of the county defendants. The response specifically denied the suit’s claims about the cause of Barton’s death, that medications given to him were contra-indicated, and that jail medical staff were not equipped or experienced enough to treat him. It further denied that actions taken before Barton’s death constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

“The damages or injuries, if any, sustained by the plaintiff were caused in whole or in part by the culpable conduct and fault attributable to the plaintiff,” it reads in part.

The following month, an attorney for CMC, and its executives and nurses moved to dismiss the suit, citing what she called its “threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause,” rather than specific allegations about named staff members.

Also in June, one of the nurses employed by CMC and named in the suit, Judy Olsa, filed a separate claim against the other defendants. In the document, Olsa says she followed all applicable standards of care for Barton, attributed the death to his own actions and/or underlying medical problems, and stated if judgment were to go in Carter’s favor, any damages due would have been brought about “by the acts, omissions or conduct of some or all of the remaining defendants.”

In response, Broome’s attorney reiterated in a June 21 filing the county’s objections to the original complaint, and stated Olsa’s cross-claim “is reduced or barred by (her) own liability.”

The suit is before U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel Stewart in Albany. It seeks compensatory and punitive damages against the named defendants, but not against Broome County.

In 2014, Broome County reached a $62,500 settlement with the family of Alvin Rios Jr., who died while in jail in 2011.

Follow John R. Roby on Twitter @PSBJRoby.