County OKs Payment in Jail Beating : Settlement: Suit alleges that schizophrenic inmate suffered brain damage at hands of deputies. He would receive $1.75 million.

Los Angeles County officials on Monday tentatively approved a $1.75-million settlement of a lawsuit filed on behalf of a 27-year-old paranoid schizophrenic inmate who has sued claiming he was nearly beaten to death by sheriff’s deputies in the Hall of Justice Jail.

Michael Frlekin was in a coma for several weeks and suffered permanent brain damage as a result of the Oct. 15, 1990, incident, his lawyers say. Deputies kicked him and struck him repeatedly with heavy flashlights, the federal court lawsuit says.

It also argues that the Sheriff’s Department routinely violates the civil rights of mentally ill inmates by placing them in the jail system’s general population rather than in segregated cell blocks.

If approved by the Board of Supervisors, the settlement would be one of the largest ever paid to a Los Angeles County jail inmate. The Claims Board approved the settlement in a closed session Monday.

“In view of the facts presented to us in this case, and the injuries suffered by the plaintiff, we felt it was an appropriate economic decision,” said Nancy Singer of the auditor-controller’s office and a member of the Claims Board.

Singer said a jury could award Frlekin several million dollars if the lawsuit goes to trial.

The suit names eight deputies: Clark Ritchey, Frankie Lobato, Wayne Holston, Clifford Heidrich, Brian Dean, Gregory Baca, Michael Treinen and Dominic Valencia.

A spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department said criminal and internal investigations into the case are under way but declined further comment. Amitai Schwartz, an attorney for Grace Frlekin, Michael’s mother, declined to discuss the case.

According to deposition testimony in court records, the incident began when Frlekin was pulled out of line while waiting for a meal in the jail cafeteria. Frlekin was violating jail rules requiring inmates to remain silent, place their hands in their pockets and keep their shirts tucked in.

One jail official said Frlekin attacked Lobato, grabbing his shirt collar. Lobato called for reinforcements and several deputies responded.

“I could hear (Frlekin) hollering for mercy,” one inmate told The Times. “I knew he was in pain.”

Unconscious, Frlekin was transferred to the jail ward at County-USC Medical Center where he suffered several seizures that the lawsuit contends were the result of his injuries.

The lawsuit alleges that jail officials were aware that Frlekin is mentally ill and that he never should have been housed with the general jail population.

Frlekin was arrested in March, 1990, on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon after he allegedly struck a customer on the head with an ashtray at a San Pedro gift shop. Family members said Frlekin had been suffering from paranoid schizophrenia several years before the assault. He often lived on the streets, unable to care for himself, they said.

According to medical records, jail doctors were aware of the severity of Frlekin’s illness. He was admitted at least four times to the jail’s mental observation units after he was repeatedly injured in fights with other inmates--scuffles apparently provoked by Frlekin’s paranoid delusions.

At various times during in his eight-month incarceration, he was drugged, and once he was placed in leather restraints in the mental health module, medical records show. One doctor noted on Sept. 4 that Frlekin would be unsafe outside the jail system’s mental observation units. Still, Frlekin was transferred back to the general jail population a few weeks after that, records show.

County mental health officials have said it is common practice for psychotic inmates to be transferred away from the relative safety of the mental health modules because of severe overcrowding.

About 15% of the inmates in Los Angeles County Jail are mentally ill. On any given day, there are about 9,000 men and women in the jail system who suffer from serious emotional disorders, making it the nation’s largest mental institution.