Three separate lawsuits filed since September allege civil rights violations by Deschutes County, the sheriff’s office, several deputies and jail staff, as well as excessive use of force and failure to provide adequate medical care to a jail inmate.

The plaintiffs in each case seek between $250,000 and $1 million from the county, various staff and individuals.

Scott Wilson, 26, sued the county and 10 unnamed jail staff in U.S. District Court in Portland last week. Wilson, a Multnomah County resident, alleges he broke his jaw shortly after being arrested in Deschutes County in late February 2012. Court records show he was charged with interfering with a Bend police officer.

The lawsuit doesn’t specify how Wilson’s jaw was broken, but alleges nurses and medical staff at the jail “unlawfully refused and failed to treat his broken jaw, which caused extensive pain and suffering, a severe infection, medical and dental injuries, and permanent damage to his jaw, mouth and teeth.” He’s seeking $250,000 in damages.

Wilson was charged with felony heroin delivery and first-degree theft in Deschutes County in early 2011. He was convicted of heroin possession, but delivery and manufacturing charges were dismissed. Wilson has also been charged with a number of misdemeanors and violations dating back to 2006, according to state criminal records.

The case was assigned to a federal judge in Portland last week, though no hearing dates have been set.

Darryl Nakahira, legal counsel for the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office, said the department doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

Wilson’s lawsuit comes on the heels of two filed late last year.

Richard Scott Samuels, 47, filed an amended complaint in November to a lawsuit he first filed in March, alleging a Sheriff’s deputy relied on a drug informant and used falsified information to obtain a search warrant for Samuels’ home as part of a 2010 methamphetamine bust.

He was arrested and charged with six counts of methamphetamine possession and sales. The charges were dismissed in 2012. In the November lawsuit, Samuels’ attorney claims the county violated his civil rights by relying on an “intentional, knowing and deliberately indifferent false affidavit for a search warrant and police report.” He seeks up to $1 million in damages, though a conspiracy charge against the county and Sheriff Larry Blanton were dismissed, because a statute of limitations had expired.

Samuels’ complaint came after Michael Cason, 48, sued the county, the Sheriff’s Office and Blanton in September.

Cason alleges a Sheriff’s deputy grabbed him by the throat and threw him against a concrete wall in the hours after his arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence of intoxicants in September 2011.

According to the September complaint filed by his attorneys, Cason attempted to write on a medical form that he was disabled and was told by a deputy to stop writing on the form, leading to an alleged altercation after Cason slid the pen he was given across a desk.

He seeks $250,000 each from eight defendants, as well as $800,000 for economic and noneconomic damages.

The county claimed in a November response that the statute of limitations in Cason’s case had expired, and any force used by deputies was justified.

A fourth case, filed last year by former jail inmate Casey Michael Hoyle against the jail and various staff, was dismissed Tuesday. Hoyle had alleged jail staff restricted his access to an insulin pump to manage his diabetes following a 2012 arrest.

But a judge this week ruled Hoyle filed the suit without exhausting all of his appeal options directly with the jail.

The other three cases are still active, U.S. District court records show.

— Reporter: 541-617-7820, eglucklich@bendbulletin.com