Alabama’s state prison system failed a 22-year-old inmate who suffered “days of repeated torture and assault,” including being raped and beaten, before his “brutal murder,” according to a federal lawsuit filed Monday by the family of Daniel Williams.

Williams, who entered the state prison system in July 2023 after pleading guilty to assault and theft charges, was left brain dead after the days-long brutality and died Nov. 9, 2023 — the same day he was scheduled to be released from Staton Correctional Facility in Elmore County.

The wrongful death lawsuit filed in federal court in Montgomery by Amber Renee Williams, the mother of Daniel Williams’ surviving daughter, claimed Alabama Department of Corrections officials, including Commissioner John Hamm and three wardens at Staton, have blood on their hands for the 22-year-old’s death.

The lawsuit claimed the officials failed to implement programs to reduce violence at Staton or change policies or procedures to address unsafe conditions at Alabama prisons despite a long-running Justice Department lawsuit.

That lawsuit alleged the agency fails to protect prisoners from inmate-on-inmate violence and sexual abuse, from excessive force by staff, and to provide safe conditions of confinement, which violates constitutional prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment.

“Despite being apprised of these conditions, defendant acted with deliberate indifference to the care and safety of inmates like Daniel Williams and took no action to remedy the conditions at Staton Correctional Facility,” the lawsuit claims.

Efforts to reach an ADOC spokeswoman were not immediately successful.

Moreover, the lawsuit alleged, officials “were aware of a spike of assaults and other disciplinary issues occurring in October 2023, the same month that Daniel Williams was brutally assaulted and tortured.

Yet, according to the lawsuit, “[e]ach defendant stood idly by, failing to properly supervise and protect, and failing to take reasonable steps to avoid the likelihood of great harm to the inmates.”

The defendants also “failed to keep Daniel Williams reasonably safe,” the lawsuit claimed, by ignoring the dangers posed by Lamont Montell Wilson, the inmate the lawsuit names as the suspect in Williams’ death.

Wilson, according to the lawsuit, “has a notorious history of violent acts in the Alabama prison system,” including nine reports for sexual assault — including some involving additional violence such as stabbing — between 2017 and 2022.

Wilson was not disciplined for the sexual assaults, the lawsuit alleged.

Efforts to reach an attorney for Wilson were not immediately successful.

“Each defendant named herein had personal and particular knowledge of the dangers of Staton Correctional Facility and of the dangers of keeping Lamont Wilson in an open-bay dorm in a medium security facility,” the lawsuit alleged.

“Each defendant, on each level, chose not to take investigative or corrective action in the numerous reports of violence, including sexual assault and rape against Lamont Wilson at five different prisons in the ADOC system.”

Before Wilson died, his family was told by the warden at Staton that Williams overdosed on drugs.

But when Wilson’s family arrived at the hospital, “they found their son had been severely beaten and had apparent restraint marks on his wrists. He also had indentations on his head “that appeared to be from the beatings to which he had been subjected.

“The family has since learned through other inmates and investigations that Daniel Williams had been tied up, held hostage in a corner of the housing dormitory, forced to consume drugs against his will, beaten, assaulted and repeatedly raped for at least two days until he was unconscious starting on Oct.19,” the lawsuit claimed.

The lawsuit accuses the defendants of deliberate indifference to Williams’ Fourth, Eighth and Fourteenth amendment rights, failure to protect under the Eighth Amendment, failure to supervise and wrongful death.