Woman, who settled jail care lawsuit, faces DUI charge

A woman who sued the Hillsborough County jail health care provider over the handling of her baby's birth and subsequent death - and received a $1.25 million settlement - has been charged with driving under the influence, records show.

Kimberly Grey, 39, was held at the Orient Road Jail today on $3,000 bail. She also is charged with felony cocaine possession and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia.

Grey was released from Lowell Work Camp on April 15 after serving a year and eight months for violating her probation on drug charges, state Department of Corrections records show.

Tampa police arrested her on the new charges about 11:55 p.m. Monday after finding Grey passed out behind the wheel of a 2001 Corvette with the engine running in the 6800 block of North Armenia Avenue, an affidavit states.

Police said Grey was impaired during field-sobriety exercises. Officers also found a crack pipe in the car's ashtray that tested positive for cocaine residue, the affidavit states.

On March 4, 2004, Grey gave birth to a baby boy over a toilet in an infirmary cell at the Falkenburg Road Jail. Records say she complained for 12 hours of labor pains but that the health care staff did not send her to a hospital. Nearly three months premature, the baby died from an infection in his lungs, according to an autopsy.

Grey accused Prison Health Services, the Brentwood, Tenn.-based company that then held a contract with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office for health care in its two jails, of mishandling her pregnancy.

In 2007, she accepted a $1.25 million settlement from the company.

The sheriff's office, which also was sued over the incident, settled its portion of the case for $350,000, but sheriff's officials maintained the settlement was not an admission of negligence on the part of that department, although changes in the system were made.

Grey was in jail at the time of the birth on drug-related charges and has been arrested since then at least twice on similar charges.

Prison Health Services served as Hillsborough's inmate medical provider until October 2005, when the contract was awarded to Coconut Creek-based Armor Correctional Health Services.