KLLF Sues BOP Over the Torture and Malpractice That Killed an Incarcerated Man

A young man with a treatable medical condition was chained to a bed, beaten, starved, and ignored until he died—and now his mother is demanding justice. A new federal lawsuit alleges that David Blakeney, 32, died inside USP Canaan, a federal Bureau of Prisons facility in Waymart, Pennsylvania, after staff deliberately ignored his escalating medical and mental health crisis and used restraints and force to silence him instead of treating him.

Yesterday, KLLF and co-counsel Neufeld Scheck Brustin Hoffmann & Freudenberger, LLP (NSBHF), Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing, Feinberg & Lin LLP, and Levy Firestone Muse LLP, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of the Estate of David Blakeney and his mother Ginetta Bynum, seeking justice for Mr. Blakeney’s brutal and entirely preventable death.

“My son was in pain and asking for help, and they just ignored him until it was too late,” said Ginetta Bynum, Mr. Blakeney’s mother. “I think about it every day, how he must have been crying out for someone to help him, and no one came. They let my baby die like he was nothing.”

This lawsuit seeks accountability from a prison system that ignored repeated cries for help. Mr. Blakeney died from a massive, untreated ulcer in his small intestine—a painful but easily treatable condition. For months, he repeated severe abdominal and rectal pain. But USP Canaan staff did nothing except give him ibuprofen, a medication known to cause and worsen ulcers. Staff never even attempted to diagnose the cause of his increasingly severe symptoms.  

Instead of treating Mr. Blakeney, personnel at USP Canaan made his condition worse in the weeks before his death. Though he had a documented history of mental illness, staff responded to his psychological distress not with care, but with abject cruelty. They chained him to a bed in hard, four-point restraints—at times, face down—for nine consecutive days. During that time, USP Canaan staff not only deprived Mr. Blakeney of basic medical care, they also subjected him to repeated physical violence, even as his condition visibly deteriorated. Mr. Blakeney was beaten, pepper-sprayed, denied food and water, and ultimately left to die slowly and alone. At autopsy, he was found to have open wounds on his wrists and ankles from the metal restraints as well as unexplained bruises and cuts all over his body, including two black eyes.

This lawsuit alleges violations of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Federal Tort Claims Act, and Pennsylvania law. It exposes the inhumane and unconstitutional treatment inflicted on a young man in BOP custody—treatment that was not only cruel but unlawful. 

The lawsuit, captioned Bynum v. United States of America, is Docket No. 0:25-cv-XXXXX, in United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. A copy of the complaint is available here.

KLLF attorneys Ali Frick and Ray Durham represent Ms. Bynum.