A former Fulton County Jail employee has pleaded guilty in connection with the 2022 death of Lashawn Thompson, the man whose family says he was “eaten alive” by bed bugs while locked in the jail's psychiatric wing — but she will serve no jail time. Stephanie Cooper was convicted of cruelty to inmates, two counts of violation of oath of office, and depriving essential services, then sentenced to 10 years of probation under a negotiated plea deal.
The plea, first reported by WSB-TV, marks the first criminal resolution tied directly to Thompson's death, which drew national attention after graphic images released to his family showed his face, mouth and torso covered with insects. Cooper entered the plea under Georgia's First Offender Act, a provision that allows defendants without prior felony convictions to be exonerated of guilt as a matter of law once probation is completed, according to legal explainers from Kohn & Yager. That means Cooper's felony record can eventually be wiped clean, even though she was found responsible for depriving Thompson of essential care.
Thompson, who was arrested on a misdemeanor simple battery charge in June 2022, spent about three months in Fulton County Jail's psychiatric unit before he died there in September of that year. The station's report on his case echoes earlier reporting from Fox 5 Atlanta, which found Thompson was unable to post a $2,500 cash bail, leaving a man later determined to have severe untreated schizophrenia detained for a minor offense instead of released.
What the Independent Autopsy Found
An independent autopsy commissioned by Thompson's family and funded by activist Colin Kaepernick ruled his death a homicide caused by cardiac arrhythmia due to severe neglect and untreated schizophrenia, according to Capital B News. The exam, conducted by former Washington, D.C. Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Roger A. Mitchell Jr., found Thompson had lost 32 pounds in under 90 days and noted he suffered from severe body insect infestation, dehydration, and malnutrition. Fulton County officials had initially ruled his cause of death undetermined.
Federal investigators later found that jail healthcare contractor NaphCare failed to administer any of Thompson's prescribed psychiatric medications for more than a month before his death, despite documenting his acute physical decline. He was reportedly found lying in a fetal position days before he died, per records cited in the Department of Justice's investigation.
A $4 Million Settlement and a Federal Reckoning
In 2023, the Fulton County Commission approved a $4 million settlement for Thompson's family, and NaphCare separately reached its own confidential settlement around the same time, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The payouts came before the U.S. Department of Justice released a 97-page civil rights report in November 2024 concluding that conditions at Fulton County Jail systematically violated the Constitution through medical neglect, hazardous living conditions, and rampant violence — an investigation launched directly in response to Thompson's death, as Hoodline previously reported.
The DOJ's findings painted a picture of a facility in crisis well beyond Thompson's case. Federal data showed the jail's non-homicide, non-suicide inmate mortality rate in 2022 was three times the national average for local jails, with 11 non-violent deaths recorded that year. Investigators also documented more than 300 stabbings and over 1,000 physical assaults inside the jail in 2023 alone, pointing to severe staffing shortages and uncontrolled contraband.
Reforms, Real Estate, and Lingering Questions
Those findings led Fulton County and the Fulton County Sheriff's Office to enter a binding federal consent decree with the Justice Department in January 2025, agreeing to overhaul housing, medical care, and safety protocols at the Rice Street facility under court-monitored oversight. Yet overcrowding has persisted: Fulton County officials moved this month to offer $56.5 million to purchase the City of Atlanta's city jail to house overflow detainees, a plan Hoodline detailed in an earlier report.
Thompson's death has also loomed over local politics. Sheriff Patrick Labat secured reelection in 2024 despite public controversy over the $4 million settlement and mounting inmate deaths at the jail he oversees. And Thompson's case is not the only one to draw scrutiny of NaphCare — the company and Fulton County Jail were also sued in late 2023 over the death of an incarcerated Atlanta teenager amid similar allegations of medical neglect.
Cooper's guilty plea closes one chapter of the criminal accountability question, but it leaves open a larger one: whether a single low-level jail employee's probation sentence adequately answers for a death that federal investigators ultimately tied to systemic failures spanning jail leadership, staffing, and a private healthcare contractor. No additional criminal charges tied to Thompson's death have been detailed in connection with this plea.
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