by Leslie Layton
Five months after his arrest in connection with the choking of his girlfriend, an Orland man said that psychosis drove him to ram his head into the wall of a Glenn County Jail cell.
Reynaldo “Reny” Cabral, 23, described himself as disoriented and desperate when he rammed his head in his isolation cell Jan. 8, breaking his neck and becoming paralyzed from the chest down. He is now a quadriplegic, and both Glenn County and MediCal have been billed hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical costs.
In addition, attorney Richard Molin of Chico said he will file a claim against Glenn County next week, a first step toward a lawsuit, that if successful, could help Cabral cover the enormous medical and other costs he will face during his life as a quadriplegic. Molin said jail officials are obliged under both federal law and state “provisions” to provide psychiatric treatment to inmates as needed.