Corrections Officer Sues City, Sheriff Over Attack by Inmate

JACKSONVILLE, FL -- The City of Jacksonville, Sheriff John Rutherford, his Undersheriff and the Director of the Duval County Jail have been sued.

The lawsuit stems from the April, 2008, attack of a corrections officer.

Convicted murderer Jonathan Tave confessed to sexually assaulting a 22-year JSO veteran in the jail's law library.

The lawsuit says the City violated the correction officer's civil rights because it did not protect her and did not follow security procedures.

"I only turned half a second...he lifted me off the ground...I couldn't breathe," says the officer, who asked to be called Jane Doe.

Doe says she spent 60 minutes fighting for her life as Tave, armed with a shank, beat her and sexually assaulted her over and over again.

"The day I got attacked, I pushed the button." Doe says that button alerted other guards, but she says no guards ever came. "They did nothing to protect me," she says angrily.

Her attorney agrees. "They allowed this to happen," says Jay Howanitz.

Howanitz, of Spohrer & Dodd, says the City did not follow safety procedures already in place. He says an unshackled Tave was never searched when he left his cell block. Howanitz says Tave was not searched when he came into the law library.

"He was allowed to be downgraded in his security measures without going through the proper committees." Howanitz adds the officer was all alone with inmates in an area that was not monitored. He says the City basically left Jane Doe in a locked closet with a killer.

"If they had just followed at least one of these (procedures), this accident doesn't happen. The fact this was compounded by five, six, seven policy and procedure failures, it's really shocking."

Doe says she was threatened by inmates all the time and asked for change. "These inmates got more time on their hand, nothing to do, to think of the next plan."

She says she hopes that the 60 minutes where she lost her life will now cause change in the system in order to spare the lives of others who work in the jail. "I'm just afraid. I basically go to church and back home. It's like I got a death sentence that won't go away. It will always be there until I die."

The Sheriff's Office says it cannot respond. Howard Maltz, of the City's General Counsel's office, is handling the case. He was out of the office today and was not available for comment.

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