The estate of a 38-year-old Clearfield man who was found unresponsive in his cell at the State Correctional Institution Smithfield, Huntingdon County, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit contending officials who arrested and imprisoned him ignored pleas from his mother that he was a high risk for suicide.

Jeffrey A. Bell Jr. “died by suicide while in custody at SCI Smithfield on March 31, 2024,” according to the lawsuit filed late last week in the U.S. District Court in Harrisburg by Philadelphia attorney Dylan Hastings.

The lawsuit depicted Bell as a man down on his luck.

He had mental health issues. He had lost his job and his wife had left him. He was again using drugs.

On March 28, state police took him into custody for violating terms of his parole from previous charges.

Bell was placed in the Clearfield County Jail, where he stayed for one night.

The next day, two parole officers took him into custody to transport him to SCI Smithfield.

At that point, Bell’s mother entered the picture.

The officers called Bell’s mother, Rogena McGarry, to inform her he was being taken to Smithfield, a facility operated by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.

She related that several times during the past few days, her son had threatened suicide. She told parole officers he needed to be placed under suicide watch while in prison.

According to the lawsuit, officers responded that Bell had not related to them any feelings concerning suicide.

The parole officers did not relay the mother’s concern about Bell’s state of mind when they arrived at the state prison, the lawsuit emphasized.

McGarry, sensing the officers were unconcerned, then called the prison.

She was met with an automated recording that presented several options — including a prompt for individuals wanting to report an inmate who may be at risk for suicide or was suffering from a mental health crisis.

The call was answered by an officer who transferred her call to a clerical assistant.

She once again explained her son was at risk for suicide and sought to have him placed under a suicide watch.

The person she talked to told her to “call back Monday to talk to a counselor.”

The lawsuit goes on to point out that Bell, after being admitted to Smithfield, was assessed by a registered nurse. He told her he had not taken his psychiatric medications for months and he expressed concern to her that “a lot of people are going to be disappointed in me (including prison staff and inmate colleagues).”

A corrections officer who interviewed Bell concluded he was “detoxing from drugs,” the lawsuit continued.

He revealed to another officer that he had lost his job and that his wife had left him and he had “begun using drugs again.”

The lawsuit stressed that another nurse reported that Bell was “anxious, had cold sweats, tremors, and generalized pain.”

At 8 p.m. on March 31, he was found in his cell.

A news release from Smithfield SCI stated that after Bell was found in his cell, he was transported to Penn Highlands Huntingdon Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

His death was ruled a suicide, according to the lawsuit.

Hastings filed the lawsuit on behalf of Bell’s estate and its administrators that include his mother, McGarry, and his father, Jeffrey A. Bell Sr.

He is survived by two daughters.

It contends that the parole officers and prison officials who arrested and tended to Bell when in prison ignored the pleas of his mother that he was a suicide risk.

The lawsuit argues that the “deliberate indifference” by officials violated his rights under the Civil Rights Act of 1983 and his rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

Hastings is no stranger to inmate issues.

In the past four years, he has represented the estates of three individuals who died in the Clearfield County Prison.

They included a male who committed suicide; a woman who was mistakenly jailed for using drugs, but who was suffering from pneumonia, which turned out to be the cause of her death; and a woman who died from ingesting drugs while in prison.

“It’s a problem,” Hastings said in commenting on suicide in prison.

The lawsuit, in referring to the Bell case, stated “SCI-Smithfield defendants knew that Jeffrey was a suicide risk based on his physical, mental and emotional presentation at SCI-Smithfield, but were deliberately indifferent to his suicide risk by failing to place him in the prison’s suicide protocol.”

“Everybody makes mistakes,” Hastings said while referring to Bell and the other victims, but he then alluded to the fact that those he represented deserved a chance to change their lives and didn’t get the opportunity.

They all had one thing in common, he stated, and that was they had families that loved them.

The lawsuit lists five counts that include violations by at least nine defendants who allegedly violated Bell’s federal civil rights.

It also seeks damages under Pennsylvania’s Wrongful Death and Survival Acts.

Maria Bivens, the spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, indicated the department does not comment on pending litigation.

Federal District Judge Christopher C. Conner has been assigned to preside over the Bell case.