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Colorado to pay $500K to inmate beaten by prison guard

Posted at 11:20 AM, Jan 06, 2020
and last updated 2020-01-06 13:20:53-05

DENVER — Colorado officials have agreed to pay $500,000 to a man serving a life sentence for murder who was severely beaten by a prison guard while he was having an epileptic seizure.

The state also agreed to pay for a medical evaluation on why 38-year-old Jayson Oslund still can’t walk by himself seven years after the beating, and to transfer him to a prison closer to his family in Pueblo, according to The Denver Post.

The settlement agreed to in December follows a $6 million jury award to Oslund that was later rescinded in a second trial.

“We are very happy to get such a terrific result, and to get some things that we can only achieve through settlement — things that money just can’t buy,” Oslund’s attorney, Zachary Warren, told the newspaper in an email.

The settlement must be approved by the Colorado Claims Board and the state’s controller before it is final.

“At this point we do not have a signed agreement so it would be premature to comment further,” Department of Corrections spokeswoman Annie Skinner told The Post.

Oslund is serving life in prison for a 2009 murder. He says a guard slammed his head into the floor of his cell at the Sterling Correctional Facility on March 7, 2013, during his second epileptic seizure of the day.

The guard no longer works for the Department of Corrections.