CHARLESTON — A mentally ill man’s family and victims will receive millions of dollars from the country’s largest medical provider to jails and prisons, including the Charleston County jail.
Wellpath, a troubled Tennessee-based corporation, will pay out $1.75 million to the family of D’Angelo Brown, according to settlement documents approved by a judge in July. In February, a judge signed off on a $2.1 million settlement between Brown’s estate and Charleston County as well as a doctor involved in his care.
In all, parties that were responsible for Brown’s care in the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center have paid out $3.85 million. His victims have received about $1 million of that money. Brown had been arrested in August 2022 after a violent home invasion that left a West Ashley family traumatized. The family sued his estate.
Jail and Wellpath staff had watched for months as Brown became increasingly thin and wallowed in his own filth and feces and rotated between hospitalizations. He died on Dec. 22, 2022. The cause of death was blood poisoning and the manner was homicide due to gross medical neglect. No criminal charges were ever filed.
Brown’s son will be the beneficiary of a structured settlements for about $4.2 million through the course of his life, according to court records. The initial vesting from the county and Wellpath was two settlements of $600,000 and $500,000.
A payout from Wellpath by way of its insurers represents a rare outcome, according to Wellpath bankruptcy records. In November 2024, the company was more than $662 million in debt, facing more than 1,500 lawsuits for medical malpractice and wrongful death. It was self-insured for up to $8 million per single incident of exposure before any third-party insurance went into effect.
Billions of dollars in claims were reduced to a $15.5 million creditors pool in April 2025, according to federal bankruptcy records. Creditors included state correctional and local emergency services where Wellpath walk out on contracts, leaving them with millions in unpaid bills in states like Michigan and Georgia.
Brown’s death represented one of the few cases where it would have been likely that a jury would have determined damages exceeded that $8 million figure and bankruptcy could not protect the company, according to insurance certificates filed with Charleston County and bankruptcy records.
The Post and Courier’s “Caught in the Cycle” series revealed Brown was among at least 20 people who perished through the last decade in South Carolina jails after their competency to stand trial had been questioned. An even greater number — at least 100 inmates — struggled with mental illness when they died behind bars. That’s more than a third of all jail deaths from that time period.
That five-part series also revealed how defendants with psychiatric conditions often spend months in county detention centers awaiting treatment needed to restore their ability to stand trial. This leaves the jails struggling to care for — and control — people with chronic, complex and often unpredictable behavioral issues.
Brown’s death led to four different lawsuits over his lack of medical care. His death also contributed to the U.S. Department of Justice launching a federal civil rights investigation into the detention facility, The Post and Courier previously reported. That investigation remains unresolved.