The Illinois Department of Corrections has agreed to pay $450,000 to a man who says prison officials punished and humiliated him after he reported his cellmate raped him.
The man's attorneys announced the settlement of his federal lawsuit today.
He was imprisoned for eight months for a minor drug offense, and was housed in a cell at the Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln with a gang member serving 22 years for armed robbery.
The lawsuit says his cellmate raped him in August 2011. It alleges prison officials failed to give him proper medical attention, threatened him with more time if he did not withdraw his allegations and forced him to spend the rest of his sentence in segregation.
Corrections spokeswoman Nicole Wilson says the department takes sexual abuse allegations seriously and has implemented new policies to comply with the Prison Rape Elimination Act.
