A Connecticut Department of Correction physician has been pulled from patient contact after a state watchdog detailed years of misconduct complaints, a disciplinary history that predates his hiring, and 27 federal lawsuits from incarcerated people alleging he mishandled their medical care. Dr. Francesco Lupis was placed on administrative leave following the report from Correction Ombudsman DeVaughn Ward, who found that Lupis was repeatedly investigated yet allowed to keep practicing inside state prisons.
Over his six years with the department, Lupis was named as a defendant in 27 federal lawsuits filed by incarcerated people in U.S. District Court in Connecticut, alleging delayed specialty care and improper medication management, with one case resulting in a $50,000 settlement, according to CT Insider. The outlet reported that Ward's office began receiving complaints about Lupis in November 2025 and continued fielding them through September 2026. Ward's report also raised a basic credentialing problem: department policy requires staff physicians hired without board certification to obtain it within five years or complete an agency competency program, but state officials produced no documentation showing Lupis complied with either requirement after his 2020 hire, according to a separate account from CT Mirror.
A Pattern Investigators Say Went Unaddressed for Years
Lupis was the subject of recurring concerns about his professional conduct, medical-record documentation, clinical duties, and treatment of people in DOC custody, per Ward's report as described by CT Insider. Security division investigations addressed patient confrontations, unavailability during on-call coverage, derogatory statements about coworkers, inaccurate patient medical-record documentation, an arrest involving alleged threats with an axe, and unprofessional phone communications during a medical emergency. Some of those investigations resulted in substantiated employee-conduct findings, while others were closed without discipline or classified as unsubstantiated, and the underlying records raised questions about how witness accounts and other evidence were evaluated, Ward's report found.
DOC nurses, physicians, advanced practice providers, and supervisors reported offensive communications and disparaging treatment of colleagues, as well as resistance to assigned responsibilities and interference with clinical operations, according to Ward's report. One of the more jarring details involves Lupis allegedly describing a nurse as extremely psychotic and big and fat, and separately using that nurse's name in a presentation case study, the report states. A witness told investigators Lupis was never really professional around inmates, and one complainant said Lupis responded to being returned to duty by declaring, “I'm back, (expletive).”
An Axe, Internal Counseling, and a Pattern of Discipline
In November 2022, Lupis was arrested following a domestic incident in which he was accused of retrieving an axe during an argument with his son, an episode that led to a DOC internal investigation ending in formal employee counseling in February 2023, per the reporting from the same CT Mirror account. Ward's report singled out that incident as one of the most alarming findings in the doctor's record. Lupis was also accused of swearing at inmates and others, withholding or denying medications, and being absent during on-call prison emergencies, and he received counseling and written reprimands following agency investigations, according to CT Insider.
Federal civil rights filings add further detail to the pattern. Incarcerated plaintiffs alleged that Lupis routinely dismissed severe gastrointestinal bleeding and chronic symptoms, including one 2022 lawsuit describing severe anemia that required four intravenous iron treatments and outside specialist care, according to court documents published on GovInfo.gov.
A Disciplinary History That Predates His State Hire
Lupis's record of regulatory trouble goes back further than his time with Connecticut corrections. In 2016, Connecticut regulators disciplined him after he failed to recognize a severed tendon in a patient's hand. In 2017, he relinquished his Florida medical license, CT Mirror reported. Lupis was hired by the Connecticut DOC in 2020, where records published by the Connecticut Office of the State Comptroller show he earned a projected annual salary of roughly $260,000 as of 2026.
Ombudsman Called for Immediate Leave, Office Now Visited Cybulski
Ward called for Lupis's immediate administrative leave and a bar on patient contact until an independent investigation could be completed, according to his report. His office had visited Cybulski Correctional Institution in Somers in January 2026, where DOC staff said Lupis would be escorted from the facility that day. Ward's office had requested records concerning Lupis's conduct and disciplinary history and continued receiving further complaints roughly six months after that records request.
DOC Commissioner Sharonda Carlos received Ward's report on October 9 and must respond by October 30. The department said in a statement that Lupis was placed on administrative leave pending further review, and that it has created a new executive director of patient care position to strengthen health care oversight, with Craig Burns leading the department's health care initiatives, per the DOC statement reported by CT Insider.
The Lupis findings arrive months after Ward published a broader conditions of confinement report in March 2026 concluding that the Connecticut Department of Correction was operating in a state of sustained institutional failure due to systemic medical care backlogs and staffing shortages, reporting from CT Mirror shows. DOC leadership strongly disputed that report's general characterization at the time. Ward is set to leave his post for a law firm job this Friday, closing out his tenure with one final, pointed accounting of how a physician's record of complaints moved through the system for years before anyone pulled him from patient care.
