Nevada ICE detainee gouged out eye after denied antipsychotic drugs, lawsuit alleges

Ricardo Torres-Cortez, Las Vegas Review-Journal on Mar 11, 2026

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An Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee was repeatedly denied his antipsychotic medication, resulting in cascading symptoms that caused him to harm himself and end up blind from one eye, a medical negligence lawsuit alleges.

Jose Braulio Sedano Navarro’s multiple medical episodes occurred at the Nevada Southern Detention Center in Pahrump within two months in 2025.

He was treated at University Medical Center in Las Vegas on Aug. 5 after he gouged one of his eyes, the complaint said. Doctors there confirmed his schizophrenia diagnosis.

“Plaintiff is now permanently blind in his right eye,” attorneys wrote in the lawsuit. “He lives with disfigurement, chronic psychological trauma, and ongoing psychiatric instability.”

The private Pahrump prison is operated by CoreCivic, an ICE contractor named in the complaint filed in District Court on Feb. 26. Two medical staffers also are listed as defendants.

CoreCivic did not respond to messages seeking comment.

“After this tragic incident, he was ultimately deported shortly thereafter,” said attorney Mitchell Bisson in an email to the Review-Journal. “He is currently undergoing ongoing medical treatment as well as emotional and psychological treatment in Mexico.”

The lawsuit alleges that Navarro pleaded for weeks to be treated with his prescribed antipsychotic pharmaceutical, Clopixol.

Instead, he was misdiagnosed and prescribed medication that proved ineffective even though he had also tried taking his own life shortly before the incident that left him partially blind, according to the lawsuit.

It wasn’t clear why Navarro ended up in ICE custody in the first place. The federal immigration agency, which isn’t a defendant in the lawsuit, did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Two months in detention

Immediately upon arriving at the private prison in Pahrump on June 6, Navarro told staff that he needed the antipsychotic he had been taking, the complaint said.

“He warned that without it he would relapse into hallucinations and lose control,” the suit said. Prison staff failed to provide an effective pharmaceutical for weeks.

“As his medication wore off, Plaintiff’s condition deteriorated exactly as he had warned,” the lawsuit said. “He began seeing demons. He heard voices. He feared he would ‘go crazy on somebody.’”

Medical staff twice misdiagnosed Navarro, at one point determining that the psychosis was substance-induced despite having no evidence that he used drugs, the complaint said. Even so, they gave him a significantly lower dose of another medication.

Not only did that pharmaceutical not suffice, according to the lawsuit, medical staff also delayed giving it to him.

‘I need my medicine’

Navarro grew desperate throughout his detention and warned multiple times that his mental health was worsening, telling staff that a family member could deliver his medication, according to the complaint.

“Please, I need my medicine. I am seeing things that are not real and hearing voices,” he wrote to prison staff on June 27. “It is urgent.”

A July 2 message read: “I need my medicine. It’s not my fault. If I go crazy on somebody, it’s because I have no medication.”

Navarro ended up in a segregation unit two weeks after arriving and attempted to take his own life on Aug. 3, the lawsuit said. That made him more paranoid.

“Later that same evening, while on suicide watch, he attempted to dig his eye out and exhibited escalating self-mutilation behavior,” attorneys alleged.

Navarro reiterated to a prison doctor hours later that he wanted to harm himself and remove his eye, the lawsuit said.

He wasn’t sent to a hospital, the complaint said. Instead, the doctor upped the medication that had been given to Navarro in detention.

Navarro made good on his statements the following day, the lawsuit said.

“After weeks of untreated psychosis and repeated warnings, Plaintiff gouged out his own right eye while under CoreCivic’s direct supervision, control, and custody,” the lawsuit said.

Attorneys wrote that two independent medical experts who determined that Navarro’s condition wouldn’t have deteriorated to the point in which he lost his eye had he received proper treatment.

“CoreCivic staff knew or should have known of Plaintiff’s diagnosis and treatment regimen from the intake process, prior medical records, and Plaintiff’s own statements,” the lawsuit said.

The plaintiffs hadn’t responded to the lawsuit in court as of Wednesday.

If you’re thinking about suicide, or are worried about a friend or loved one, help is available 24/7 by calling or texting the Lifeline network at 988. Live chat is available at 988lifeline.org. Additionally, the Crisis Text Line is a free, national service available 24/7. Text HOME to 741741.

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