Kenneth Mills, a former director of a Cleveland jail who was convicted of running ‘inhumane’ prison, has been sentenced to serve nine months in the same prison. 

In 2018, six inmates died in less than five months following which Mills resigned. A US Marshals Service report described the conditions in the jail as “inhumane.” The cells were unsanitary and several inmates were left with inedible food and no medical care. Last month, Mills, 56, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of dereliction of duty and falsification.

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During sentencing on Friday, Judge Patricia Cosgrove condemned his actions.

“What you’ve done is unthinkable and callous. I don’t know how you can look at yourself in a mirror,” Cosgrove told Mills. 

Prosecutors told the court that the 56-year-old accused came up with a money-making plan to have the jail serve as a regional corrections facility that would charge suburbs and Cleveland to house their prisoners. This plan led to severe overcrowding in the jail and forced corrections officers to work in intolerable conditions. 

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Assistant Ohio Attorney General Matthew Meyer wrote in a report that Mills’ tenure as director of the jail harmed prisoners and corrections officers.

“Mr. Mills’ conduct in this case was fundamentally his interest in his own care and ambitions. Humans were ground up as grist. That was the county jail,” Meyer said before sentencing. 

Meanwhile, relatives of two of the six prisoners who died at the jail gave statements. Joseph Arquillo Jr. said his father was jailed on August 27, 2018, on a probation violation. He described how his father laid motionless on a mat for close to two hours before an officer kicked the mat and walked away. An hour later, another officer checked on his father and found him dead. An autopsy showed he died of a drug overdose.