State fights to send mentally ill defendant to Wellpath facility in South Carolina  

Is Duop Tharjiath too dangerous for the Alaska Psychiatric Institute?

Alaska officials say yes, and are fighting to send the 24-year-old Anchorage man charged with manslaughter to a for-profit prison hospital in South Carolina.

Tharjiath’s attorney has asked an Anchorage judge to halt the planned move, saying it would be unnecessary and harmful.

In court filings, the state Department of Health and Social Services argues that Tharjiath, who has been diagnosed with a severe form of schizophrenia, has a “history of extreme violence” that would make admitting him to API’s forensic unit dangerous.

Instead, the department wants to send him to the Columbia Regional Care Center — described by one news outlet as a “supermax of sorts for violent mentally ill criminal defendants.”

The facility is owned by Wellpath, the same company involved in a controversial privatization bid at API.

The state earlier this year quietly sent Clayton Charlie, another high-profile mentally ill defendant, to the institution.

Claims that Tharjiath is violent and can’t be treated at the Alaska Psychiatric Institute are false, said Julia Moudy, an attorney with the Alaska Public Defender Agency.

“What’s happening to Mr. Tharjiath is inhumane,” Moudy said.

Tharjiath is charged with manslaughter and assault stemming from an incident in April where he walked away from his assisted living home, stole a running car, then backed over two people in the parking lot of the Brother Francis Shelter, according to a charging document in the case.

Veronique Long, 59, was killed.

The state’s move to send Tharjiath away is only the second time in decades that officials have moved to outsource the care of mentally ill criminal defendants to an Outside entity, and what happens to him could have broader consequences for mentally ill people charged with crimes here.

Three chances to be “restored”

For decades, Alaskans charged with crimes and found too mentally ill to stand trial have been treated in the “competency restoration” program at the state psychiatric hospital in Anchorage.

But instability at the hospital this year has pushed the forensic program to its breaking point.

In May, not long after his arrest, a court found Tharjiath mentally incompetent to stand trial — meaning he can’t understand or legally participate in the proceedings against him.

[Dozens of patients at Alaska’s only state-run psychiatric hospital have been arrested this year for assaults inside the facility. Is there a better way for authorities to react?]

When a criminal defendant is found incompetent, the state has three opportunities to “restore” the person to competency with treatment. If the person is still not lucid enough to be found competent after three treatment periods — equaling at most roughly one calendar year — the charges have to be dismissed. (At that point, the person can still be forced into a psychiatric hospital, but through the civil commitment process.)

Right now, there’s a wait of 90 days for a defendant to get a spot in the 10-bed forensic wing at API, according to the state’s online bed count tracking system. There are 22 people on the waiting list.

The wait, in reality, appears to be longer: According to a court order by Anchorage Superior Court Judge Kevin Saxby in the case, Tharjiath was first ordered to API in late May.

At subsequent check-ins in July and September, hospital management told the court there was no space for Tharjiath at API, according to Saxby’s order.

By mid-November, almost five months later, Tharjiath had “advanced to the top of API’s waiting list,” the order said.

That’s when the state told the court it wanted to send Tharjiath to the South Carolina facility.

In a court filing, Steven Bookman, an attorney representing DHSS, asserted that Tharjiath is just too dangerous for API.

"The defendant has a history of violence at API. The risk of injury to staff and patients would be very high. API has very limited security of only two unarmed contractors. API has limited ability to use restraints,” he wrote.

In API’s “tenuous” state, accepting Tharjiath as a patient could potentially lead to loss of certification from federal regulators, the motion said.

Tharjiath’s attorney says she’s asked for evidence or documentation of the claim that her client is violent, and hasn’t received any.

While Tharjiath has been in jail, “there have been no incidents involving disruption or violence,” Moudy wrote in a court filing. “As recently as December 3, 2019, DOC reported Mr. Tharjiath as quiet, not disruptive, and non-communicative. He is not subject to DOC’s policy of forced medication because he is not a danger to himself or others.”

Sending him to South Carolina would isolate him from regular contact with his attorney, public guardian, medical providers and family in Alaska, she said. She also raised questions about the facility’s policies on forced medication and other living conditions.

Former care providers say the man they know bears little resemblance to the person described in the state’s filings.

Tharjiath arrived at her facility undressed, and a little intimidating, said Kwam Francoise, the manager of an Anchorage transitional home where Tharjiath lived for several months.

But Francoise soon learned how to calm her client down, taking him take him for long drives listening to music, stopping to get Burger King or McDonald’s. They became close.

“Everyone knows, I call him my baby," she said.

He needs one-on-one support, Francoise said.

Tharjiath was okay as long as someone helped him to take his medication, and kept him busy with activities he found joy in, like trips to a swimming pool, said Molua Becke, another Anchorage care provider who worked with Tharjiath.

When Tharjiath comes in contact with police, things fall apart, Becke said.

“He cannot understand why they are punishing him,” he said. "To him, they are punishing him for nothing.”

Becke says sending Tharjiath to an expensive out-of-state facility isn’t a solution. The state provider agreement says costs are “not expected to exceed $90,000” per person.

“Alaska is running away from its problem,” he said.

“Unique solutions”

Other states, including Hawaii and Maine, have sent mentally ill inmates deemed too difficult to treat in-state to the South Carolina prison hospital.

Wellpath touts the 354-bed facility in Columbia, South Carolina as a hospital equipped to care for both medically fragile inmates and prisoners with severe mental and behavioral problems.

State Department of Health and Social Services officials say the state just wants to reduce the long waitlist for forensic services at API, and to treat patients in the best facility for their needs.

“All patients are unique and require unique solutions,” said deputy commissioner Albert Wall in an e-mail.

Wellpath’s facility is “the only one that DHSS has been able to locate that has any current and appropriate forensic capacity,” Wall said.

Placements at the South Carolina facility would happen separate to Wellpath’s ongoing consulting contract with API, in which the company is being paid $700,000 monthly to advise and train staff.

The state would like to find other providers in the future, Wall said. As of Dec. 18, Wellpath hadn’t actually signed a provider agreement for Tharjiath yet, according to DHSS.

“We were glad something was happening”

Tharjiath is not the first Alaska criminal defendant sent to the Columbia Regional Care Center.

The first in decades to be sent out-of-state for restoration treatment was Clayton Charlie, the defendant in a 2018 stabbing death of Alaska zoo gardener.

Charlie, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, was sent to the Columbia Regional Care Center for treatment this year when it looked like his wait for a bed at API might be longer than the time allotted by the law, according to his family and hearing notes in his case file.

“We were very concerned that Clayton would not be restored because API appeared to be doing virtually nothing to move that direction after months of incarceration” wrote Bill Paton, Charlie’s stepfather, in an e-mail. “At one point he was about 28th on the list for a forensic bed at API and about 6 weeks later he was 26th. “

Calculations showed that Charlie wasn’t on track to get a bed for up to two years, Paton said.

The family had no input about his transfer to South Carolina, and only found out he’d been moved when he was already there, he wrote.

“We were glad something was happening, but wondered about the safety of transporting him by air, as we would not have wanted to be on the same plane with him for fear of his becoming violent during the transport,” Paton said.

In South Carolina, Charlie was “restored” to competency and was able to legally enter into a plea agreement in October, Paton said. The family is relieved by the plea agreement.

“I wonder how the safety and expense of this cobbled together forensic psychiatric evaluation and treatment approach compares with crafting an effective program in Alaska," Paton said.

A hearing in Tharjiath’s case is scheduled for early January.

Meanwhile, he remains in the Anchorage jail.

In early December, Tharjiath’s attorney told a judge that her client had been isolated, becoming increasingly withdrawn and unable to communicate.

“The guards are having trouble getting him up to take a shower,” she said.