Background: The Fulton County Jail (AP Photo/Kate Brumback, File). Insets: Lashawn Thompson and his Fulton County Jail cell (The Harper Law Firm).
A Georgia woman has entered a guilty plea in connection with the death of a jail inmate who was “eaten alive by bedbugs” while behind bars in Atlanta.
Stephanie Cooper, a staffer at the Fulton County Jail where Lashawn Thompson was found dead in 2022 inside a filthy, garbage-filled cell in its mental health unit, was convicted on Monday of depriving essential services, cruelty to inmates and two counts of violation of oath of office. She was sentenced to 10 years of probation after accepting a negotiated guilty plea under Georgia’s First Offender Act, according to local ABC affiliate WSB.
Thompson, who was homeless and had schizophrenia, died at the Fulton County Jail three months after his arrest for allegedly spitting at a Georgia Tech police officer. He was found slumped over with his head on a toilet. He was malnourished and infested with an “enormous presence of body lice.”
Images released after Thompson’s death showed his face, mouth and torso covered with insects.
The medical examiner later concluded that Thompson was “neglected to death.” His family said he was “eaten alive by bedbugs.”
WSB reports that Cooper’s arrest and conviction were directly related to Thompson’s death.
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In a November 2024 press release, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thompson’s death was symptomatic of a pattern of dangerous and dehumanizing conditions.
An investigation and report released by the U.S. Justice Department in 2024 found that inmates held at the Fulton County Jail had been subjected to unconstitutional, inhumane and violent conditions that include homicides, stabbings, sexual abuse, pest infestation and malnourishment.
Conditions of confinement violated the Eighth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, authorities said.
The Atlanta jail holds 2,000 inmates awaiting trial and other court hearings. According to the DOJ report, a “significant portion” of the inmate population has “an identified mental illness.”
“The unconstitutional and unlawful conditions at the Fulton County Jail have persisted for far too long,” Garland said in the AG’s press release at the time. “We are committed to working with Fulton County and the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office to remedy them.”
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division called the treatment of inmates inhumane and violent.
“Detention in the Fulton County Jail has amounted to a death sentence for dozens of people who have been murdered or who died as a result of the atrocious conditions inside the facility,” Clarke said in connection with the report. “It’s not just adults but also children who are subjected to conditions and treatment that violate the Constitution and defy federal law.”
The DOJ report found that from 2022 to the present, six inmates died in violence at the jail. In 2023, there were more than 300 stabbings, which involved uncontrolled contraband and makeshift weapons. There have been four deaths from suicide in the past four years.
The DOJ’s report outlined other fatalities in the mental health unit that took place in less than a year, including the death of a homeless man arrested for breaking into a building where he sought shelter and warmth. He stopped taking his medications, his health declined, and he was found unresponsive following a likely seizure. He died in hospice a month later.
After Thompson died, two other inmates were killed by their cellmates in that unit. Both had their feet bound. One of them was wrapped up in bedding “like a mummy,” the DOJ said.
Federal authorities launched a civil rights investigation into the jail conditions in July 2023. Within weeks of opening the investigation, six more inmates died in the jail.
“Poor supervision, poor classification practices, and inattention to the maintenance of the jail are major contributors to the unacceptable violence,” the DOJ report said.
Fulton County Jail deputies and detention officers use force — including deploying Tasers — without adequate justification, the DOJ said. The report also outlined the conditions, including standing water collecting in living areas, exposed wires, pests and deficient services for providing clean clothing and sheets.
Jailers were also found to have punished people with long terms in restrictive housing without adequate due process protections.
Jason Kandel contributed to this report.
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