CHICAGO, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- Cook County Jail guards, for years, forced several thousand inmates to endure strip searches under humiliating conditions, a judge in Chicago ruled.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly late Monday found inmates were lined up shoulder-to-shoulder and strip-searched in unsanitary conditions without regard to the seriousness of the charges against them, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Kennelly also found evidence guards verbally abused inmates about their anatomy, body odor and sexual orientation during the searches, the newspaper reported.
The class-action lawsuit was brought on behalf of ex-inmates by Michael Kanovitz, a lawyer who also alleged up to 100 inmates were lined up at a time and humiliated in the strip searches.
The Cook County Sheriff's Department was not immediately available for comment, the Tribune reported.
