CLEVELAND (AP) — The former director of a troubled county jail in Cleveland has been charged in an amended indictment for what authorities say was his failure to keep safe a facility where seven inmates died during a four-month period last year.
Fifty-four-year-old Kenneth Mills was indicted Wednesday by a Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH’-guh) County grand jury on two misdemeanor counts of dereliction of duty.
He also faces misdemeanor falsification and felony tampering with records charges regarding accusations that he lied to Cuyahoga County Council members during a meeting in May 2018.
Mills resigned shortly before the U.S. Marshal’s Service issued a report last November calling conditions at the Cuyahoga County Corrections Center “inhumane.”
Mills’ attorney, Kevin Spellacy, says it’s the county sheriff, not the jail director, who is responsible for conditions inside the facility.