Tosado says the state taking her son's settlement compounds her family's grief
Plaintiff, Beatty v. Lamont; mother of Jayson Negron
“No family should have to bury a child, and the state is making that pain worse. I will never stop grieving Jayson. The settlement in his death was the best acknowledgment we could get that they took his life, and that it was wrong. The state trying to take that money forces me and my family to relive the trauma of Jayson’s death, and it has left me angry and hurt. By joining this lawsuit, I am fighting for myself and for other families, because none of us should have to go through this”
Source and context
Official statement
About this source
ACLU of Connecticut's own case page for Beatty v. Lamont (D. Conn. No. 3:22-cv-00380), the federal class-action lawsuit challenging Connecticut's cost-of-incarceration law under the Eighth Amendment's excessive fines clause. States the filing date, the defendants, the March 2023 ruling, the plaintiffs who joined in April 2023, and the October 2024 outcome, and carries first-person statements from plaintiffs Teresa Beatty and Natasha Tosado.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
Tosado's fifteen-year-old son, Jayson Negron, was fatally shot by a Bridgeport police officer in 2017 while Tosado was incarcerated. His estate later reached a settlement with the city, and the state sought part of it to satisfy Tosado's incarceration debt.
After the quotation
Tosado joined the federal lawsuit against the law as a plaintiff on April 20, 2023.
How this statement is classified
Responding to: Connecticut's prison-debt law, under which the state can seize up to half of a settlement, inheritance or other financial windfall for up to 20 years after release, violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on excessive fines.
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
Tosado directly objects to the state pursuing part of a wrongful-death settlement tied to her son's death, describing the practice as adding to her family's harm.
- Recorded on
- Published here
- People and groups discussed
- Connecticut Department of Correction, Connecticut Department of Administrative Services
Should Connecticut collect per diem incarceration fees from former inmates' settlements and windfalls?
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