DENVER — The Colorado Department of Human Services will pay $1 million to settle a lawsuit that contended the rights of residents of a state-run center in Pueblo for those with intellectual disabilities were violated when officials strip-searched them to determine whether they were abused.

The March 2015 strip searches of 62 residents at the Pueblo Regional Center for those with severe intellectual disabilities “resulted in disregard of individual rights including privacy, dignity and respect,” the state’s public health department determined after it investigated civil rights complaints filed by guardians.

The lawsuit alleged that the searches were non-consensual, violated the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights and unlawfully discriminated against them. The Colorado Department of Human Services denied any wrongdoing as part of the settlement and maintained that the examinations were conducted in the interest of protecting the safety of the residents.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Some of the residents who were strip-searched had been sexually abused in the past. During the searches, some were disrobed and their genitals and buttocks were physically inspected.

The $1 million settlement includes attorney’s fees and costs and money that will be divided among about 20 plaintiffs. Nominal amounts also will be paid to several guardians and family members of the residents, who also had contended they should have been contacted before the searches occurred.

“The amount of the settlement obviously acknowledges the gravity of the issues,” said Mari Newman, a civil rights lawyer in Denver who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the residents.

Newman said she “has no doubt” that the lawsuit helped prompt the Colorado Department of Human Services to put in place numerous policy changes at the center.

Those changes, which had been recommended by the state’s public health department and the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, include improvements in how the center reports allegations of mistreatment, abuse, neglect and exploitation to both law enforcement and regulators. The state also increased funding for additional staffing, training and salary increases. The center also has changed policies regarding the rights of residents and their guardians.

A federal audit also found that the strip searches violated the rights of residents, who feared they could not refuse to participate in them. Federal regulators barred the state from letting the center accept new residents because the federal audit found residents had been subjected to pervasive sexual and physical abuse.

That moratorium on new residents at the center, now home to 44 residents, will be lifted because of the policy improvements, the Colorado Department of Human Services announced. Federal regulators supported lifting the moratorium, state officials said in that statement.

© 2018 The Denver Post
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Read more stories like this one. Sign up for Disability Scoop's free email newsletter to get the latest developmental disability news sent straight to your inbox.