Update: Sheriff's Office Responds To Lawsuit Filed By Former Inmate

Editor's note: This article has been updated with a response from the Bergen County Sheriff's Office.

BERGEN COUNTY, NJ — A former Bergen County inmate has accused two sheriff officers of a brutal attack that left him with a collapsed lung after he refused to wear a straitjacket, court records show. But the sheriff's office said that internal affairs investigators reject a lot of his allegations as false.

Valmir Xhemajli, of Hackensack, contends that he was pepper-sprayed, hit in the face, and beaten in the Bergen County Jail on Oct. 5, 2021, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Bergen County Superior Court.

The officers had no reason to put him in a straitjacket before issuing the attack, which was caught on security camera footage, according to the lawsuit.

Xhemajli was left on the floor bleeding, coughing and unable to breathe for a "prolonged period of time," the lawsuit contends.

He was hospitalized for several days then returned to the jail, not to a medical unit, but a room with a mattress on the floor, his lawsuit states.

The Hackensack man said he now has post-traumatic stress and "still suffers from trouble with breathing, thigh pain and numbness and facial injuries."

Xhemajli seeks punitive and compensatory damages for himself and annual harassment and discrimination training for the officers, whom he says did not show any "willingness to remedy the situation in a non-violent manner."

The multi-count suit charges the defendants with negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress, assault and battery, and violation of civil rights, court records show.

Xhemajli had previously filed a lawsuit in 2019 against the Paterson Police Department in connection with an incident during which, he said, officers handcuffed him to a hospital bed and assaulted him, according to NorthJersey.com.

A Bergen County Sheriff's Office spokesperson said that, as the 2019 litigation appears to have been dismissed, so does the sheriff's office expect Xhemajli's new lawsuit also will be dismissed.

"A thorough internal affairs investigation, which included review of video footage from two different angles, refutes many of (Xhemajli's) allegations," the sheriff's office said.

Xhemajli, the office said, was instructed to put on an anti-suicide gown, not a straitjacket.

And although the former inmate was pepper sprayed as a result of his refusal to comply with an officer's "lawful order," he was not hit in the face, beaten or left on the ground, bleeding or otherwise, the office maintained. He was, nonetheless, referred to the hospital the next day for a "follow-up examination."

"The incident was closely scrutinized, and the officers were disciplined for violations of the agency’s standard operating procedures," the sheriff's office said. "The officers involved are appealing that discipline to the Civil Service Commission, and a hearing in the Office of Administrative Law is scheduled for later this year."