BY VINAYA SAKSENA

CENTRAL FALLS — Officials representing the local Donald W. Wyatt Detention facility in recent news stories about a former detainee’s death were less than truthful about the facts of the matter, according to information released this week by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Rhode Island chapter of the ACLU alleges that a court document it recently obtained demonstrates that representatives of the Wyatt Detention Facility gave misleading accounts of plight of the late Hiu Lui “Jason” Ng, who died earlier this year after having been held in the facility on immigration-related charges.
A spokesman for the facility, however, has categorically denied the allegations, while questioning the appropriateness of discussing the case of the deceased Hong Kong native in print.
Based on a transcript they had allegedly received recently of a U.S. District Court hearing on July 31, the ACLU alleged that Wyatt officials “were deliberately misleading in their public pronouncements on the death of Hiu Lui Ng, a Chinese national, at their facility in August.”
The organization went on to say that the document “also lends credence to the view that Ng, near death and experiencing great pain, was dragged from his cell at Wyatt by immigration officials and forced to travel to Hartford, Connecticut in reprisal for a petition filed on July 29th by family lawyers seeking his release from prison because of his severe medical condition.” The ACLU noted that Ng died a week later, of what the State Medical Examiner’s Office has said were complications of metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma, or liver cancer.
The Rhode Island ACLU announced in September that it was beginning an investigation into Ng’s death, and specifically into whether or not he received adequate medical attention for his condition, which the ACLU and other supporters of Ng’s surviving relatives say he had complained of on several occasions while in custody. In its statement this week, the ACLU alleged that Wyatt officials and their legal representatives had contradicted themselves, with an attorney claiming shortly before Ng’s death that he had been receiving “more than adequate medical care.”
“At the same time, the government attorney also stated, just days before Ng died of advanced cancer, that Wyatt’s medical records revealed only that Ng had ‘lower back strain and sciatica,’” the ACLU wrote. “This stands in direct contradiction to a statement that Wyatt officials issued shortly after Ng’s death, in which they claimed that Ng’s ‘diagnoses came as the direct result of medical care and special diagnostic evaluation recommended by the facility’s medical staff.’”
Dante Bellini of the RDW Group, who has been serving as a spokesperson for the Wyatt Detention Facility, denied the allegations, saying that he did not wish to engage in “back and forth” on the facility’s behalf.
“We categorically deny any accusations that they make regarding our statement,” Bellini said. “We stand by that statement totally.” In the ACLU’s statement questioning the aforementioned Wyatt statement, it was also alleged that Attorney Jack McConnell, who has allegedly been handling the case for the ACLU pro bono, has been “having difficulty getting records of Mr. Ng’s stay at the facility from Wyatt officials.” Bellini, however, said that Wyatt staff were “cooperating fully” with the investigation. More importantly, he added, he felt that the investigation should be conducted in a way that was sensitive to Ng’s family, rather than making it a news media spectacle.
“This is a matter that needs to be treated with some dignity,” Bellini said. “A family lost a loved one. We’re just not going to engage in a battle of quotes.”