A couple of months after Victor Torres filed paperwork to pursue a lawsuit against Connecticut related to what he called the “preventable” death of his daughter, Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-García, the state filed its own claim: if Torres wins money, it wants some of it back.

State officials say Torres owes more than $300,000 for the cost of his past incarceration in Connecticut and are seeking to recover that debt from any settlement granted to the Torres-García estate. Torres, who is a beneficiary of the estate, was sentenced to three years incarceration after 2017 drug and firearm convictions.

Torres-García’s body was found in a plastic bin in October. Her autopsy showed the 11-year-old died of starvation and child abuse. Her mother, aunt and mother’s boyfriend have all been charged in connection to her death.

After Torres-García’s death, her father filed for approval to sue the Department of Children and Families on behalf of her estate, claiming her death was preventable. The case is before the Connecticut Office of the Claims Commissioner, which grants permission to sue the state.

DCF had a history with the family, and school records show that the mother had withdrawn Torres-García from school for homeschooling just before her death. The case has brought scrutiny both to DCF and the homeschooling system in Connecticut.

Torres claims DCF should have investigated more thoroughly and kept the child safe. In one instance, a social worker with DCF did a welfare check via video call when the girl’s mother claimed she was out of state. Later, investigators found that an adult woman had impersonated the child, who was already dead at the time, during that video call.

Victor Torres is listed as a beneficiary to Torres-García’s estate, which means the state can take part of his earnings.

“It’s ghoulish, it’s unconstitutional, and also Connecticut has a very long history of using prison debt to offset its own damaging acts,” said Dan Barrett, legal director with the ACLU of Connecticut. 

Torres-García’s estate is seeking $75 million in damages, claiming DCF negligence. The money would be split among beneficiaries, although under state law, her mother would not be eligible to receive money because of her criminal charges.

Torres and his attorney declined to comment on the ongoing case. DOC spokesman Andrius Banevicius said in a written statement that the department follows all applicable laws.

“Cost of incarceration reimbursement is governed by state statute,” the statement said. “The Department’s role in cost of incarceration matters is solely as the keeper of the records regarding the monetary amount for the applicable collecting state agency.”

Seeking reimbursement from some formerly incarcerated individuals is a regular practice by the state. If someone who was incarcerated in Connecticut for certain crimes gets money from an inheritance, winning a lawsuit or the lottery, the Department of Correction seeks that money back by placing a lien on the earnings. 

Most states allow their prison systems to charge incarcerated people for the cost of medical care or “room and board.” Connecticut’s system differs in the way the debt is calculated. At the end of the fiscal year, the DOC determines its spending across areas like prison upkeep, the cost of settling lawsuits and workers’ claims, then divides that cost among all the people who were incarcerated at the time, Barrett said. According to a 2022 lawsuit, at that time the cost was $249 per day.

This leaves formerly incarcerated people with no way to estimate the amount they could be billed.

Leigh Appleby, a spokesman for the Department of Administrative Services, said his agency files the liens but doesn’t have discretion over when they file.

“By statute, the DAS Collections Division is legally required to review all probate notices to determine whether any listed individuals — either decedents or beneficiaries — owe a debt to the state, including costs associated with incarceration or Medicaid,” Appleby said in a statement. “This is done by matching information from probate filings against databases maintained by various state agencies, such as the Department of Social Services, the Department of Correction, and others.”

DAS staff review between 3,000 and 4,000 probate cases per month, and once the estate is settled, the money received goes into the state’s general fund.

Alex Taubes, an attorney and advocate, said the probate court flags when formerly incarcerated people are set to receive an inheritance, whether that be money or property. The state can then put liens against that money to collect prison debt.

“You’re negating the ability of somebody to continue to have a stable life,” Barrett said.

Taubes and Barrett are two of the advocates who have worked to get prison debt eliminated in Connecticut. In 2022, the legislature passed a set of reforms that limits the amount that the state can take. The change allows formerly incarcerated people to retain about $50,000 of any windfall. The law change also said lawsuit earnings can only be collected from people who were convicted of certain serious crimes.

Judiciary Committee co-Chair Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven, decried the practice. 

“We’ve had people incarcerated, they’re trying to get their lives back in order. And at the moment when they are getting their lives back in order, whether there’s monies coming to them or not, the state then starts pulling those monies from them,” Winfield said. “That doesn’t seem to be the way to help people move forward. And I don’t mean helping them as individuals, but helping all of us, because when they are more successful, then we as a society are more successful and they are less likely to commit a crime.”

Sen. Ceci Maher, D-Wilton, who is co-chair of the Committee on Children and a member of the Judiciary Committee, was also troubled by the lien. 

“Had this issue come before the Judiciary Committee on taking monies from people who had inheritance or lawsuits against the state, I would certainly have supported review and revision,” she said. “In this tragic situation it feels particularly wrong as this father has lost his child.”  

Barrett said that while efforts in the legislature may have stalled, the ACLU is working through the court system to end the practice. In addition to a 2022 lawsuit, he said the group is looking for more opportunities to take the issue to court.

He said it violates the excessive fines clause of the U.S. Constitution, which limits the government’s ability to collect payment as a punishment for an offense.

Advocates also fear it disincentivizes people from suing the state, which reduces accountability. If once you win a lawsuit, your debt will be collected, it reduces the incentive to press the issue.

“It works against government accountability,” Taubes said.

Barrett said this is particularly painful for people, like Torres, who may sue seeking justice for their child.

The ACLU also worked on a case out of Bridgeport when in 2017, 15-year-old Jayson Negron was shot and killed by police. His mother sued the city for wrongful death saying the officer used excessive force, and the state filed a lien against her settlement. In the end, she was pardoned, leaving the state no right to take money from her.

“It seems like people whose children died are like an unlikely target of this reform,” Taubes said. “People whose children died because of the state’s misconduct, which is not a really good group of people to pick on.”