Lake County sheriff, other officials released from federal lawsuit

The Lake County sheriff's office and some county law enforcement officials have been released from a federal lawsuit filed by the family of a woman who died during a 2011 hunger strike at Lake County jail.

According to federal court documents, Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman determined the sheriff's office, Sheriff Mark Curran, former jail director Wayne Hunter and a jail health services administrator did not act indifferent to Lyvita Gomes of Vernon Hills after she voluntarily put herself on a hunger strike in December 2011.

However, Coleman also wrote in her ruling that Correct Care Solutions - the medical professionals who tended to inmates at the Lake County jail - should remain part of the suit.

Gomes' family members filed the lawsuit in 2012 alleging health care workers, jail administrators and the sheriff ignored her mental illness and denied her appropriate medical care after she was arrested and incarcerated in 2011.

Gomes was held in the jail on a misdemeanor resisting arrest charge when she began the hunger strike, and died 15 days later. She'd been arrested after struggling with deputies taking her into custody for not answering a jury duty summons.

The lawsuit claimed Lake County officials denied her due process and violated federal laws requiring accommodations for people with disabilities.