Milwaukee partner Mark Thomsen is the lead civil lawyer on the legal team responsible for helping the Wesley family receive $1,050,000 from Milwaukee County’s insurer after the County’s contractor, Armor Correctional, failed to provide Omar Wesley with mental illness medication during his time at the County Jail.
Omar was first diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when he was 21 years old. Omar was later arrested for attempted bank robbery but was ultimately found not guilty due to mental disease or defect because of his mental illness. He was held in the Mendota Mental Health Institute for treatment. In 2016, he was ready to be released to the community because his daily treatment with the antipsychotic drug clozapine had resolved most of his symptoms.
Tragically, while he was being held in the Milwaukee County Jail awaiting his release and freedom, Omar was not given his daily necessary prescription of clozapine which caused him to decompensate and again suffer from horrific hallucinations, delusions and symptoms of mental illness. He was then returned to Mendota.
“This was completely preventable. All they had to do was give Omar, a human being, the medication for his mental illness. That would have been it,” said Thomsen.
Thomsen and the Wesley family hope the settlement for the personal injury will help to highlight mental health issues in the criminal justice system and encourage others to push for real change.
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