A wrongful death lawsuit was filed Wednesday in the Western District of Oklahoma against the former Cleveland County sheriff regarding the October 2024 death of a pretrial detainee.
Those named in the lawsuit include former Cleveland County Sheriff Chris Amason, former undersheriff and later acting Sheriff Michael Finley and former detention center chief John Bishop.
The complaint was filed by Carmen Jones, who alleges her son Alex Wright’s Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated in the detention center while awaiting trial for multiple felonies, including robbery, kidnapping and domestic abuse. It claims the violation of his rights led to his death on Oct. 3, 2024. Wright had been detained for over six months, since March 20, 2024.
Wright’s death was classified by the Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner as accidental and was attributed to acute fentanyl toxicity. The lawsuit states Wright was found unresponsive in his cell and that detention center staff administered 8 milligrams of naloxone before emergency services arrived.
According to the lawsuit, the detention center prohibited in-person visitation, providing Wright no outside access to narcotics
The lawsuit alleges one or more unnamed detention center employees failed to respond to distribution of fentanyl inside the detention center. The lawsuit states Jones does not have the information needed to identify those individuals, but the defendants do.
The lawsuit alleges Amason chose not to adopt, require or enforce measures regarding illegal drugs despite knowing detention center personnel possessed them. Amason has since resigned from office after pleading no contest to one felony count of embezzlement in April.
The lawsuit also alleges Bishop and Finley failed to adequately address the situation through their respective roles within the detention center. Bishop was the detention chief at the time of Wright’s death. He resigned April 21, 2025, the same day an inmate assaulted an officer.
Wright’s death was the eighth in a string of deaths that occurred in the detention center when TK Health was the center’s medical provider. TK Health ended its 16 year contract with the detention center in June 2025 following failed health inspections and numerous deaths within the facility.
This story was edited by Audrey McClour.
