McLEAN, Va. (AP) — Edward Kovari's 18-day ordeal began Sept. 12, 2016, when some guys in a van showed up to take him from a jail in Virginia to Texas, where he was wanted on charges that he'd stolen a car.

But according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, the trip from Winchester, Virginia, to Houston took more than two weeks in a crowded van where inmates had to urinate in bottles and take turns sleeping on the van's floor.

The private company that contracted with the jail to transport Kovari kept him shackled in the back of that van for 18 days as it wound through the country picking up inmates in an effort at cost efficiency.

The charge on which Kovari was brought to Texas was later dismissed.

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