Tosado says the state taking her son's settlement compounds her family's grief
Natasha TosadoPlaintiff, Beatty v. Lamont; mother of Jayson Negron
Tosado, whose son was fatally shot by a Bridgeport police officer while she was incarcerated, said the state trying to take part of the wrongful-death settlement from his death compounds her family's grief, and she joined the federal lawsuit against the law.
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.
“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”
Official statement
Where this statement fits
Should Connecticut collect per diem incarceration fees from former inmates' settlements and windfalls?
Connecticut has charged incarcerated people a daily fee for the cost of their imprisonment since 1995, and state law lets the Department of Administrative Services collect on that debt for up to 20 years after release, including by taking up to half of a lottery win, inheritance or lawsuit settlement, or a lien against a deceased person's estate. A Connecticut Mirror investigation published September 27, 2026 found the daily rate has reached $347, that a year in prison can produce a debt of nearly $127,000, and that the state collected about $21 million this way from 2020 to mid-2026 from hundreds of formerly incarcerated people, including money from wrongful-death and police-brutality settlements. The legislature narrowed the law in 2022 and 2024, and a federal lawsuit led the state to withdraw its claims against its four named plaintiffs by October 2024, but collection from others has continued. The dispute is whether Connecticut should be allowed to collect this debt from former inmates' settlements, inheritances and windfalls at all, not whether any individual's specific bill was calculated correctly.
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
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
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The Dispute Index. "Tosado says the state taking her son's settlement compounds her family's grief". First published: 2026-09-29. Last updated: 2026-09-29. https://disputeindex.com/events/3266-tosado-whose-son-was-fatally-shot-by-a