CLEARWATER, Fla.- The state’s human-services chief was ordered to pay $80,000 for keeping mentally ill inmates in jail, a fine that came a week after she was charged with criminal contempt.
Judge Crockett Farnell imposed the sanction against Department of Children & Families chief Lucy Hadi on Thursday during a hearing on the status of seven Pinellas County jail inmates found incompetent months ago but only recently moved to mental health facilities.
Under state law, the inmates should have been moved sooner, and Farnell charged Hadi last week with indirect contempt of court.
The agency will appeal the fine, spokeswoman Al Zimmerman said. “We’d like to work with the court in solving this problem, not against the court,” Zimmerman said.
Hadi has acknowledged a problem but said her agency has seen a dramatic increase in mentally ill inmates and doesn’t have the bed space to handle them all.
Florida law requires that jail inmates found incompetent to stand trial be placed into treatment within 15 days. As of Monday, the state had 237 inmates who had been declared incompetent and had been in jail longer than 15 days, Zimmerman said.
Hadi said Friday she will not seek to keep her job when Charlie Crist is sworn in as governor next month. Gov. Jeb Bush, like Crist a Republican, picked Hadi two years ago to replace Jerry Regier, who left the department after he and several top aides accepted favors from contractors that worked with the agency.