Attorney general seeks $1.4M to settle 2 suits against state

The state attorney general is asking the Legislature to pay more than $1 million to a former prison inmate who claims he became infertile because state prison doctors failed to properly treat him for an infection, and more than $450,000 to a woman whom a state jury found was sexually assaulted by a guard at the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility.

Following a nonjury trial, a state judge in 2009 awarded Greg­ory Allen Slingluff $983,395 for injuries he suffered after his scrotum swelled in 2003 to the size of a melon. The judge also awarded Slingluff and his lawyers their costs for bringing the lawsuit.

Slingluff underwent multiple surgeries to remedy the problem.

The court ruled that two prison doctors at Halawa Correctional Facility failed to treat Slingluff when he first reported the infection, gave him too small a dosage of antibiotics when they did begin to treat him, then failed to switch to a different antibiotic when the first one proved to be ineffective.

Slingluff said he first noticed pain to his scrotum about a week after he had been sentenced to five years in prison for drug promotion and possession of drug paraphernalia.

The state Intermediate Court of Appeals upheld the judgment. The Hawaii Supreme Court rejected the state’s appeal last July.

In the sex assault case, Stacey Costa­les filed a lawsuit in state court in 2007 against youth correctional officer Scott Rosete; his supervisors; the state Department of Human Services; the department’s Office of Youth Services, which operates HYCF; and the state.

During the 2009 trial, witnesses testified that Rosete and another youth correctional officer sexually assaulted female wards.

The other guard, Lia Oli­one, pleaded guilty in 2004 to three counts of sexual assault and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The state later agreed to pay $350,000 to the parents of Oli­one’s victim.

Costales’ jury awarded her $1.5 million, but because the percentages of fault jurors assigned to each defendant did not match the dollar amounts for the damages awarded, the judge ordered a new trial for the allocation of fault and damages.

The state Intermediate Court of Appeals and Hawaii Supreme Court upheld the judge’s decision.

In October the state agreed to pay Costa­les $462,594 to settle her claims against the state and Rosete’s supervisors.

The money also settles Costa­les’ claims against Rosete for his actions while serving in his official capacity as a state employee. A trial is pending to determine how much Rosete owes Costa­les for actions committed while not acting in his official capacity.

Rosete no longer works at HYCF and was never criminally charged with sexually assaulting Costa­les. During the civil trial Harold Fitchett, an investigator with the state Department of the Attorney General, testified that he interviewed Costa­les about her sexual assault claims. However, he said the union that represents the correctional officers at HYCF directed him to destroy all the records of his investigations.