The estate of Jason Rothe, a patient at the stateโs Secure Psychiatric Unit who died in 2023 after a physical altercation with corrections officers, is suing the state and several prison employees in a wrongful death lawsuit.
Aimee Khatib, Rotheโs sister and representative of his estate, accused the correctional officers and a department nurse of violating Rotheโs constitutional rights by using unlawful excessive force and failing to follow policies around restraint and medical care. The civil suit, filed in federal court last week, requests a jury trial and seeks monetary damages.
The suit names former prison guard Matthew Millar of Boscawen, supervising officer Lesly-Ann Cosgro of Henniker, four other correctional officers and a department nurse. All except Millar and the nurse are still employed by the Department of Corrections.
It also accuses former commissioner Helen Hanks of interfering with the investigation of Rotheโs death.
A jury acquitted Millar of second-degree murder following a two-week trial in Concord last year. Heโd been accused of causing Rotheโs death by kneeling on his back for several minutes, putting pressure on his lungs.
The third anniversary of Rotheโs death is approaching next week, on April 29.
Rothe, 50, was not serving a criminal sentence but was a patient at the psychiatric unit in the menโs prison in Concord, a secure facility for people with severe mental illness who are deemed by the court system to be dangerous. He was transferred there in 2022 after receiving mental-health treatment for schizophrenia at New Hampshire Hospital since 2017, according to the complaint.
The altercation came when a team of corrections officers tried to extract him from a recreation area after heโd refused to leave several times. In what the suit describes as a โchaotic, unprepared and understaffedโ operation, officers tased him eight times, hit him at least eight times and kept pressure on Rothe in a face-down position for several minutes, even after he was cuffed and stopped resisting.
He was then placed in a prone position on a stretcher, although, according to the lawsuit, the Department of Corrections did not have any policies or training for correctional officers on its use. He was not transitioned into a face-up position until 10 minutes after the extraction began, when officers noticed he was not moving or breathing. They then performed CPR.
The medical examiner ruled that Rotheโs death was a homicide caused by compressional and positional asphyxiation.
The lawsuit accuses officers of keeping Rothe in a prone position and kneeling on his back even after he was handcuffed and stopped struggling despite their training on use of force, tasers, restraint and transport policies and the โduty to interveneโ when excessive force is being used.
Last year, Millarโs defense argued at his trial that he should not bear the blame because Cosgro, who ordered the extraction, and the Department of Correctionsโ training protocols failed him, placing him into a risky situation without preparation or protection.
The suit also seeks to hold Hanks liable for failing to train and discpline the officers involved, as well as interfering with the investigations by the New Hampshire State Police and the attorney generalโs office.
After Rothe died, according to the lawsuit, Hanks held โunauthorizedโ review meetings with each officer and instructed them to revise their statements about what had happened, according to the lawsuit. She later shredded her notes from those meetings, and the attorney generalโs office wasnโt made aware for almost a year, the complaint said.
โSuch alarming behavior committed by Commissioner Hanks to minimize, conceal or sanitize the criminally charged conduct that caused the death of Mr. Rothe demonstrates a tacit approval or ratification of the conduct,โ the lawsuit says.
Hanks resigned from her post as commissioner last May, two months before Millarโs trial, amid a slew of tensions with Gov. Kelly Ayotte and lawmakers.
A spokesperson for the attorney generalโs office said they would review the suit and โrespond as appropriate in court.โ
