Ex-Inmate Who Miscarried After Deputies Stopped At Starbucks En Route To Hospital Gets $480K Settlement

A 34-year-old former inmate who miscarried in California after deputies stopped at a Starbucks while transporting her to the hospital, therefore delaying her treatment, has been ordered to receive $480,000 in a settlement.

Sandra Quinones was six months pregnant when her water broke at Orange County Jail on March 28, 2016. She pushed a call button on her cell to get help. However, the jail staff responded to the emergency only two hours later, the Orange County Register reported.

Instead of calling an ambulance, the deputies took her in a patrol car and even stopped by a Starbucks store for coffee on their way to the hospital, the lawsuit claimed.

Quinones was eventually hospitalized, but her fetus did not survive.

The lawsuit alleged that the officers responded with a "deliberate indifference" to Quinones' medical condition, violating her civil rights, according to the New York Post reported.

"This poor woman, she's in jail having a miscarriage and, instead of calling an ambulance, they take her to the hospital in a patrol car and the cops stop at Starbucks while she's bleeding," Dick Herman, Quinones' lawyer said, as per the outlet.

Quinones, who is no longer in custody, doggedly pursued the case even though she is homeless and mentally ill, Herman said. "She understands that she was wronged," the lawyer added.

Orange County has agreed to pay the settlement, but Quinones must formally accept the amount before it becomes final.

"This was a long, hard fight. That's a very good result for someone badly treated in the jail," Herman said further.

Quinones's case was initially filed as part of a class-action lawsuit where several other inmates also claimed that they were being mistreated in the Orange County Jail.

However, Quinones' case and the case of another inmate, Ciera Stoelting, were later split off as separate lawsuits. Stoelting, who lost her baby during childbirth after being denied proper medical care, was ordered to receive a $1.5 million settlement in April 2021.

In June and July, a total of 28 female inmates in an Indiana jail filed two separate civil rights lawsuits claiming they were sexually assaulted after a corrections officer sold the key to the women's wing to male prisoners. The lawsuit alleged that David Lowe, the corrections officer, sold the key for $1,000 and that the transaction led to a "night of terror" that started on Oct. 23 and lasted until the early hours of Oct. 24, 2021.