Prisons

C.J. Ciaramella | 1.6.2026 4:47 PM

In a case of fatal medical neglect that led a disgusted federal judge to hold the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in contempt, government investigators confirmed that prison officials allowed an incarcerated man to waste away from highly treatable cancer and misrepresented key facts about his health care to a court.

A report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the Justice Department released today concluded that serious failures by multiple levels of staff at Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Seagoville, a low-security prison in Texas, led to the death of Frederick Bardell from colon cancer in 2021.

The OIG found that severe understaffing led to six months of delays in scheduling a colonoscopy for Bardell, despite symptoms, tests, and scans showing that he likely had advanced colon cancer. As his condition worsened, staff denied his requests for a compassionate release without fully reviewing his medical records, and then misrepresented the adequacy of treatment he was receiving to a federal judge. And when that judge finally ordered Bardell to be freed, BOP officials violated the court's order to wait until a release plan had been approved, instead dumping Bardell, who was emaciated and incontinent, on the curb outside an airport. Bardell died in a hospital bed nine days after his release.

The OIG found that the problems with Bardell's release occurred "because at least nine BOP employees failed to read or fully read the Court's order."

Kimberly Copeland, Bardell's former attorney, says in response to the report that the government's failure to acknowledge her client's rapidly deteriorating health "turned a term of imprisonment into a de facto death sentence."

"This was not just a breakdown—it was an avoidable human tragedy," Copeland says.

The OIG investigation came at the request of U.S. District Judge Roy B. Dalton Jr. for the Middle District of Florida, who presided over Bardell's case. Dalton wrote in a seething civil contempt order in 2022 that the BOP should be "deeply ashamed" of how it treated Bardell. Its actions, he said, were "inconsistent with the moral values of a civilized society and unworthy of the Department of Justice of the United States of America." In........

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