Three staffers from the jail run by conservative firebrand David Clarke, the former Milwaukee County sheriff, were charged Monday with felonies stemming from the dehydration death of a mentally ill inmate who was denied water for a week as punishment for bad behavior.

The charges came less than a year after an inquest jury heard evidence from prosecutors that it was common for employees of the Milwaukee County Jail to cut off water to unruly prisoners in violation of the jail’s written regulations, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Lieutenant Kashka Meadors and correctional officer James Ramsey-Guy are each charged with neglecting an inmate, a felony. Sheriff’s Major Nancy Evans is charged with felony misconduct in office and misdemeanor obstruction. Clarke, who oversaw the jail until his retirement last August, was not charged in the matter because he was not directly involved.

Prosecutors allege Meadors gave the order to shut off water in 38-year-old Terrill Thomas’s solitary confinement cell in April 2016 and that Ramsey-Guy was the jail staffer who physically closed the pipes, according to the Journal Sentinel.

The move was intended to discipline Thomas, who had used his bedding to clog a toilet and flood his jail cell in the special needs unit, where he was initially kept for his bipolar disorder, according to prosecutors. An investigation later showed that he went seven days without any liquid, lost 35 pounds, and called out for water before staffers found him dead in his cell. The medical examiner ruled he died from ‘‘profound dehydration’’ and classified it a homicide.

Evans, the jail’s former commander, is accused of lying to investigators during an inquest into Thomas’s death last year. Prosecutors say she misled them on questions about how long Thomas’s water was withheld and failed to preserve critical surveillance video that showed the water being cut off and never restored again, according to the Associated Press.

Washington Post