17-year-old US prisoner is trying to eat his way out of jail

[webfact]

Officials: $1M spent on medical care for jailed Chicago teen

CHICAGO (AP) — A talented teenage basketball player unable to post bond on a low-level burglary charge ended up ingesting screws, needles, a 4-inch (10-centimeter) piece of metal and other objects while behind bars, leading the jail to spend more than $1 million in medical care on him.

Authorities at Cook County Jail told the Chicago Tribune that the case of 17-year-old Lamont Cathey highlights the hazards of institutionalizing impressionable youths, some of whom have mental health issues.

"This case to me is a perfect example of the failure of the criminal justice system," the jail's executive director, Cara Smith, told the newspaper. "It's been a crushingly sad and very frustrating case."

The newspaper says the sheriff's office moved the Chicago teen into a newer section of the jail last week and that his condition appears to have improved.

Cathey has been in the jail for 16 months following his arrest for allegedly stealing money from a pizzeria safe, after he couldn't post a $5,000 cash bond.

It's only when a plea deal that was supposed to let him attend a boot camp fell through last year that he began swallowing objects. They included a thumbtack, strips of leather and even parts of a medical device he had dismantled.

"He's literally eating the jail," Smith said.

Cathey has been hospitalized two dozen times and had several operations to remove objects from his digestive tract.

Cathey piled up other charges while at the jail, including allegedly shoving a guard. That could mean time in state prison. 80 inches (203.2 centimeters)

Cathey's brother, Kenneth Barber, said he had never displayed signs of depression before he was jailed. He had been enrolled in an alternative charter high school, where basketball coaches called the 6-foot-8 (2.03-meter) Cathey "Big Boy."

His lawyers have said in court filings that he urgently needs psychiatric treatment. That isn't extraordinary for Cook County Jail, where nearly a quarter of its 8,000 inmates are mentally ill, say jail officials, who have long clamored for more mental-health resources.

"Lamont requires structured, long-term psychiatric residential treatment," one of the defense filings said.

Cathey had been in trouble before. He was arrested more than a dozen times as a juvenile, though none of those arrests led to convictions.

A cousin, Charles Drake, said Cathey always wanted to do well in life.

"He's got a good heart," he said. "He just got some wrong turns."

-- (c) Associated Press 2015-05-25

[NickJ]

Arrested more than a dozen times but never convicted....maybe he eats evidence too. At

6 '8 the poor kid must intimidate a lot of people.

[DiamanteTen]

If he can digest metals, Take him to the World's Hardcore Eating Competition. Hope that he could makes more money than his medical cares cost hahaha

ps.If it's not funny i'm sorry about that.

[ttthailand]

Maybe respond a little slower next time and perhaps game over problem solved.

A few real basket cases take up a huge portion of the resources. Sometimes you need to let nature take its course. But we all know this won't happen and maybe for good reason ... but sure makes me think down a dark path when I read stories like this.

[HeijoshinCool]

A million bucks?

What? ObamaCare doesn't cover him?

[slipperylobster]

I am not sure this story is so unusual, that it must be posted here in Thailand.

However, after reading this story...I started thinking...is this the weirdest thing in the world?

Not quite. Here is more to the story.

http://metro.co.uk/news/weird/ "Farmer arrested for talking dirty to his sheep"

now that's a bit more funny.

Edited May 25, 2015 by slipperylobster

[Thaddeus]

This is a definition of talented that I wasn't previously aware of.

[noahvail]

This is a definition of talented that I wasn't previously aware of.

This guy is the one to emulate http://tailgatefan.cbslocal.com/2012/10/01/michel-lotito-the-man-who-ate-an-airplane-and-everything-else/

[nahkit]

"Cathey has been in the jail for 16 months following his arrest for allegedly stealing money from a pizzeria safe, after he couldn't post a $5,000 cash bond."

16 months and his case still hasn't come to court?

[tifino]

eventually he'll overdo it, and only then will he:

rust-in-peace

[ALLSEEINGEYE]

only in USA would it cost $1 Mill USD for that kind of medical assistance. If that doesn't sum up why they need to overhaul their complete system (from billing to insurance coverage) then I don't know what does.

[FangFerang]

It is so easy to say he made bad decisions, when science shows that is rarely the case. Everyone who has had a good upbringing is always quick to judge those that did not. It's simple for simpletons top make such judgments. After all, they have an opinion, and that has tom count for something -- yeah, right, drop opinions about dark energy at a physics forum and get laughed out of the room.

People love what science gives them -- iPhones, computers and drones, but people dislike the questions science asks....especially when their sense of righteous indignation demands someone be punished.

[thousandpercent]

Arrested more than a dozen times but never convicted....maybe he eats evidence too. At

6 '8 the poor kid must intimidate a lot of people.

Or he lives in Chicago where, as in many other places in the US, police routinely abuse the human rights of young, poor males by arresting them without any evidence of wrongdoing.

[Muzarella]

$ 1 MILL in medical treatments on a private American jail?...Sure...Good overcharge to the American taxpayers...and a ggod reason for the "management" to keep this guy in jail forever.

[maidee]

let the metals and objects in his body