Ohio settles lawsuit with ex-inmate over strip search claim

COLUMBUS >> Ohio has agreed to pay a former inmate $72,500 to settle a lawsuit that claimed guards wrongfully strip searched him at a southeast Ohio prison.

Cleveland.com reports 37-year-old Jose Irizarry, of Cleveland, said in his federal lawsuit that guards were acting on bad intelligence about drugs when they searched him in front of other inmates in December 2015. No drugs were found.

Irizarry says one of the guards used a racial slur and said he wanted to make an example of him. Irizarry was serving a seven-year sentence for drug trafficking.

His attorneys say strips searches done in the casual view of other inmates is considered cruel and unusual punishment.

Irizarry was moved to another prison when he complained and a guard captain who ordered the search was disciplined.