FARGO — The family of a 19-year-old woman who died nine hours after being admitted to the Rolette County Jail have accepted a $2 million offer of judgement from Rolette County on behalf of itself and two of its former correctional officers.

Lacey Higdem, 19, died on June 4, 2020, after collapsing and hitting her head on the wall of her jail cell.

According to a release from Minneapolis law firm Robins Kaplan LLP, Higdem was experiencing worsening adverse effects from methamphetamine, and exhibiting signs of someone who needed urgent medical attention, but no action was taken by correctional authorities at the Rolette County Jail in Rolla.

According to the release, correctional officers did not seek medical care for Higdem, despite other inmates repeatedly pressing the emergency button out of concern.

According to court documents cited in the news release, the two officers watched TV in the control room and engaged in intimate contact with each other. An officer checked on Higdem after midnight and found her unresponsive. It was alleged the officer failed to administer lifesaving measures before alerting an ambulance. Higdem was pronounced dead at 12:42 a.m.

Rolette County Sheriff Nathan Gustafson initially blamed the incident on an “overwhelming drug problem,” and didn’t discipline the correctional officers in question. The Rolette County Jail was shut down for two months by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation following Higdem’s death.

Higdem’s family filed a civil suit in federal court in 2022 against the county, individual correctional officers, a doctor and a medical facility she was in the custody and care of the night she died. Robins Kaplan partner Tim Purdon said the $2 million judgment will be among the largest jail death judgments in the state that he is aware of.

“My daughter Lacey was only 19 years old when she passed away. She was scared, vulnerable and needed help. Instead, she was ignored and left to die. These two correctional officers mocked Lacey instead of helping her. No mother should have to live with the pain of knowing her child suffered alone when she could have been saved,” Higdem’s mother Jessica Allen said in the law firm’s news release.