"Inmate Teri Garko Exposes Horrifying Tale of Abuse, Medical Negligence, and Legal Betrayal: Ohio Prison System Accused of Deliberate Blindness Cover-Up, Corrupt Attorneys Take $200,000 Payoff, Leaving Victim Blind, Broke, and in Desperation."

My name is Teri Garko, and I am currently an inmate at the Ohio Reformatory for Women (ORW). This is my true and continuing story of abuse and medical negligence at the hands of the State of Ohio and my own corrupt personal injury attorneys. Let me tell you how the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction and my attorney, Sean Buchanan, let me go blind and lose over $90,000 of my own money. I have included documents to support all my facts.

Prisons let inmates go without medical attention all the time to save money for the states. The state of Ohio did this to me as well. In 2017, I was in a residential treatment unit at ORW Residential Treatment Unit (R.T.U.). I had glaucoma, but I didn’t know it, and my vision was getting blurry. I told the staff at ORW R.T.U. nurses Ann Pacararo, Bethany Ritter, and Sharon Pryor. It turns out I had a lens that was detached, but the prison did not want to give me the surgery I needed to save my vision. So they ignored me, and the ORW eye doctor, David Miller, just hid the facts. So my eye got worse, and the entire time, my right eye was slowly expanding in my head. Over a period of months, my eye was filling with fluid, and the eye pressure was so bad that I was suffering in pain every day and night, and no medical attention was given. In fact, the C/Os constantly harassed me and hurt me deliberately. They would pepper spray me directly in my bad eye at close range while I was in handcuffs (see attachment). A lieutenant named Shelby Bennett always took it upon herself to abuse me with such maliciousness that it was unbelievable. She willingly and with purpose used force intended to cause me serious pain in my blinded eye (see attachment). This woman slammed me directly face down while I was handcuffed in the back, and then she bent down and sprayed me directly in the right side of my face and directly in my eye, which was going blind from central retinitol vein occlusion.

I had hired an attorney in February 2019 named Sean C. Buchanan. I paid him almost $7,000 to sue the employees of the ODRC and ORW for medical negligence and abuse. But it turns out that the attorney and his law firm, Slater & Zurz, in Akron, Ohio, are a government law firm. Attorney Buchanan is a lobbyist for the State of Ohio. His specialty areas of law are government relations, administrative law, and regulatory law. He worked for the state before going into private practice as a personal injury lawyer. So, he actually contacted the ODRC, and he told his government friends that for $200,000 he could make everything “go away” and he would get all my claims dismissed. My own attorney let me go blind and suffer and protected the ones who did this to me. He took a $200,000 payoff from the defendants, and ORW continues to deny me medical treatment, and I continue to live in pain.

See Ohio Court of Claims
Case 2020, 00 369 JD. Teri Garko v. Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction

I also have a psychologist who works for the ODRC who is an amazing guy, and unbelievably, he was helping me investigate the conspiracy that my attorney did against me. My doctor’s name is Greg Vanarsdall, and he works at the Dayton Correctional Institutional Institution. (see attachments)

I hired three more attorneys, who also used me for my money and did literally nothing. I called 30 or 40 attorneys in Ohio, and no one will help me. No one. I’ve been robbed for over $87,000 by dirty attorneys, and I was left blind and in pain. I’ve never had medical attention, and now my eye has to be removed. I live in pain every day. I don’t get any mental health treatment either. I’m all alone in this. I have no friends or family helping me. All I had was a trust fund my father left me, and the crooked lawyers took it all and purposefully did nothing.

After the crooked attorney Sean Buchanan deliberately fucked up my lawsuit and it was dismissed, I continued to represent myself pro-se (on my own), and I did it while in prison. You see, I used some of the money my dad left me to take paralegal courses from the Blackstone Career Institute. So I learned some important topics in personal injury and civil law. I applied this to my current situation. Also, the ORW destroyed all the surveillance footage of that lieutenant, Shelby Bennet, spraying pepper spray directly in my eye that was going blind. She lied about the entire thing because ODRC and ORW knew what she did was another lawsuit added on top of the malpractice suit for my eye.

So can you imagine the suit for malpractice, medical assault, battery, and the legal malpractice done by attorney Buchanan? This entire case was worth millions, and it only got worse because three more dishonest attorneys who also defended Buchanan robbed me. I gave $5,000 to Attorney Hank Meyer (Akron, Ohio) and asked him to sue Buchanan for legal malpractice, and he took my money and ran. No contract, no nothing. Just disappeared, then I hired two more attorneys, Robert McNamara and Matthew Fortado (also from Akron, Ohio), and it turned out they were friends with the law firm Slater and Zurz that Buchanan worked for, and they protected Buchanan’s paralegal, Emeldor Hunter, and they did not do anything either.

Fortado and McNamara stole $75,000 total from me and wiped out my entire bank account. When the money was gone, they withdrew from my case. Also, Matthew Fortado has been arrested for having sex with his clients (see attachment) and also for possession of cocaine and conspiracy to distribute cocaine (see attachment), and he never told me that he doesn’t carry legal malpractice insurance. All these people used me until I had nothing. I’m left blind, broke, and in pain. I’m suffering, and I’ve been done so wrong. Please help me. No one will talk to me. I need to tell my story.

I also filed a complaint against attorney Sean Buchanan with the Ohio State Supreme Court Disciplinary Counsel, and even the Ohio Supreme Court protected Buchanan (see attachment). I cannot believe how corrupt our government is. It’s all about money and covering things up for your political friends.

This is a true story of dirty politics, government corruption, and human rights, and my story needs to be heard. I need a support system. I’ve lost everything, and I’m losing my eye. I need to talk to an attorney, a journalist, and the media. I need to use a platform to help others in my situation.

I no longer have the resources to continue any legal education in prison.

I need a voice, and if anyone can contact me, you can do so at the GTL Getting Out App. (See attachment) Media, journalists, attorneys, organizations, etc.

All the document evidence I have is included on my site. (See tab for attachments.)