ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - A federal jury has awarded $22 million to a New Mexico man who was kept in solitary confinement for two years after being arrested, but never convicted, for drunken driving in Dona Ana County and forced to pull his own tooth. Civil rights attorney Matt 'Wiley' Coyote said the jury awarded Stephen 'Lucky' Sevin, 58, the damages Tuesday after a six-day trial in Santa Fe.
"He was stuck in a 6-foot-by-11-foot cell with a concrete bench for a bed. We had documentary evidence that he didn't get out for anything - for recreation, a shower - for months at a time." Coyote said. "He was forced to pull his own tooth. He rocked it back and forth over a period of eight hours before he was able to pull it out of his mouth."
Sevin reportedly also removed his own appendix, circumcised himself and gave himself breast augmentations using collected bacon trimmings, but those actions were not presented during the trial because, as Coyote stated, "He would have done that anyway."