THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 7, 1996 TAG: 9603070424
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
A bystander who was abducted at gunpoint by an escaped murder suspect at Maryview Medical Center in 1994 is suing Portsmouth Sheriff Gary Waters and the hospital over the incident.
The victim, Charles W. Farmer, then 29, was sitting in a car outside the hospital on March 1, 1994, waiting to pick up a patient, when murder suspect Todd Moore burst out the door, jumped into Farmer's car, waved a gun and ordered Farmer to drive him to North Carolina.
After the pair drove for four hours, police arrested Moore and freed the victim. Farmer was not physically hurt, but he later said he was severely scarred emotionally.
At the time, Moore was in custody of the Portsmouth sheriff, but he escaped from the hospital by attacking a deputy sheriff and stealing his gun. Moore was later convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
On Friday, Farmer filed suit in Norfolk's federal court against Waters, three other sheriff's employees, Maryview and its corporate parents.
The lawsuit, filed by lawyers Andrew M. Sacks and Stephen C. Mahan, seeks $8 million in compensatory damages and $2 million in punitive damages. It claims that the sheriff and his employees knew Moore was ``a wild, dangerous and violent man'' with a history of eluding police, yet they let Moore go to the doctor's office with only one deputy sheriff and let his handcuffs be removed.
The suit charges Waters with inadequate training of his staff and failure to develop policies to handle the transfer of dangerous inmates to medical facilities.
Soon after the abduction, the sheriff's office acknowledged that it was department policy to send at least two deputies to guard prisoners whenever they leave the jail.
``Our internal affairs office is investigating the violation of policy,'' Lt. Elizabeth McManus said in March 1994. ``There should have been two deputies.''
A spokesman for the sheriff's office declined to comment Wednesday.
The lawsuit also claims that Maryview is liable for not screening Moore's admission to the hospital and not insisting that the sheriff's office provide adequate security.
``This wasn't some normal patient,'' Sacks said.
A Maryview spokesman declined to comment Wednesday.
At the time, Moore was a suspect in two New York murders and a Peninsula murder and a suspected drug kingpin. Later in court, prosecutors asked for the death penalty against Moore, but did not get it.
In court testimony in 1994, Farmer said the incident left severe psychological scars.
``It's hard to go out in public anymore,'' said Farmer, a former bar bouncer who trembled as he testified. ``Now, you don't know what's going to happen when you go out. You're in a public place, a hospital, and look what happened there.''
KEYWORDS: LAWSUIT PORTSMOUTH SHERIFF by CNB