A group of inmates incarcerated in the Broome County Correctional Facility filed a class action suit against the County of Broome, Sheriff Fred Ashkar and Trinity Food Services Group, Inc. for alleged negligence in relation to an outbreak of salmonella in the jail in May.

On May 26, members of the Broome County Health Department received a call from the Broome County Correctional Facility that roughly 100 inmates had symptoms of gastroenteritis, which causes diarrhea, fever, chills and headaches. Suspecting the highly contagious norovirus, the BCHD immediately enacted strict precautions for the entire Broome County Correctional Facility.

“By the evening of the 26th we had 144 people counted as having gastroenteritis, and still no corrections officers,” said Dr. Lazarus Gehring, the medical director of Broome County Health Department. “So we’re starting to think, hey, you know, this doesn’t sound like norovirus. We should have some staff people sick here, and there’s not.”

Primecare Medical collected eight stool samples from affected inmates. On the morning of May 27, the Wadsworth Lab in Albany confirmed all eight samples tested positive for salmonella. Three hundred and twenty out of 450 individuals incarcerated at the jail were infected during the outbreak, and ten required hospitalization.

On June 25, a group of five inmates filed a complaint against Broome County, Ashkar and Trinity Services Group, Inc., which provides food services to the jail. The complaint asserts that the group is representative of all inmates infected in the outbreak and that the class definition for the plaintiffs in the suit includes all infected inmates.

“This incident did not occur as a result of mere neglect but was part of the systematic mistreatment of inmates, deliberately violating their rights and paying little attention to the safety practices of storing and delivering food to be served [to] inmates,” wrote Ronald Benjamin, the attorney representing the group, in a statement to Pipe Dream.

The suit alleges that the salmonella outbreak was caused by the improper handling of chicken by staff at the jail. According to the complaint, a worker employed in the jail’s kitchen attested that an employee of Trinity Services knew the chicken was “not fit for human consumption” at the time she served it to inmates in a salad.

According to a report released by the Broome County Sheriff’s Office, the chicken salad served on May 24 was the source of the outbreak and confirmed that multiple violations related to food preparation and storage were identified.

“Trinity Services group had a horrible reputation prior to the sheriff hiring them to [be their] food service provider and in this particular case one of the employees knew the chicken was not fit for human consumption when she put the seller to be served inmates,” Benjamin said.

The complaint further alleges that the jail has violated safety regulations related to the preparation and serving of food in the past, with reports of violations found by the Broome County Health Department dating as far back as February 2019.

The Sheriff’s Office’s report confirmed that these violations did in fact occur in 2023 and 2024.

“Several of the violations identified during this investigation are repeat violations that have previously been cited to the food vendor, particularly those involving the cooling of food,” said Olivia Catalano, the Broome County Director of Public Health, in the report. “Similar violations were documented in June 2024 and April 2023, but whenever violations are identified, our staff provide education and corrective guidance to facility personnel. Critical violations must be corrected immediately and may result in closure if they pose an imminent public health risk.”

The suit also claims that the defendants, but particularly the sheriff, were negligent in their duty to provide the appropriate follow-up medical care for the infected inmates.

The complaint requests that the court permit the class action and that the class members are awarded damages in an amount to be determined at trial.

“The defendants evinced a deliberate indifference to the health, welfare and safety of inmates incarcerated at the Broome County Jail and particularly with the handling of food to be consumed by the inmates in connection with both maintaining proper methods to ensure cleanliness and safety in the preparation of all meals to be served to the inmates, and instead gave inmates food not fit for human consumption,” the complaint read.