A former prison guard who falsely claimed she had checked on a suicidal teen inmate has her job back.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports the state Employment Relations Commission decided Wednesday to reinstate guard Rosemary Esterholm with $29,000 in back pay.
Esterholm and other guards left Sydni Briggs alone in a cell in Wisconsin’s youth prison in 2015. They didn’t check on her for 40 minutes and later discovered she had hanged herself.
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Esterholm completed paperwork claiming she checked Briggs five times even though Esterholm wasn’t on duty in Briggs’ unit at those times.
Briggs survived and won a $19 million settlement. Esterholm was fired in March after she acknowledged in a deposition she didn’t check on Briggs.
The commission accepted her explanation that she mistakenly filled out the paperwork during a chaotic day and deserved only a one-day suspension.
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