The inmate, identified as 31-year-old Markeisha Monique Renee Blount, suffered a medical emergency around 6 a.m. on Sept. 29 at the Maple Street Correctional Facility, the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Tuesday. Jail personnel administered life-saving measures, including Narcan, but she died at the facility.
Detectives determined another inmate brought drugs into the jail and gave them to Blount, the sheriff’s office said, adding that “the drugs are believed to have contained fentanyl.”
The county coroner’s office will determine Blount’s official cause of death, the sheriff’s office said.
The sheriff’s office identified the inmate who brought the drugs into the facility as 34-year-old Ashley Gromnicki. She remains in custody while prosecutors review the case for possible murder charges.
“We are deeply saddened by this tragic incident,” Sheriff Christina Corpus said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with Markeisha’s family and loved ones during this unimaginable time.”
The sheriff’s office said it has carried out several specialized sweeps of the jail for any remaining drugs.
Keeping drugs out of its jails is a “daily focus,” the sheriff’s office said, adding that it relies on body-scanning machines, dogs, searches and other measures. On Oct. 1, deputies stopped a 27-year-old San Jose man from smuggling methamphetamine, drug paraphernalia and a cellphone into the Maple Street Correctional Facility.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, May 21, ordered the Probation Department to analyze and improve excessively long wait times for attorneys, doctors and social workers visiting Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey.
The motion, approved unanimously, comes after attorneys from the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office and the Juvenile Justice Clinic at Loyola Law School told the Southern California News Group that waits as long as three hours were hindering their efforts to provide legal services to clients at the juvenile detention facility.
“Lawyers, doctors, and social workers need to be able to visit their young clients at Los Padrinos, and they shouldn’t have to wait two or three hours to see them,” said Supervisor Hahn, who represents Downey, in a statement. “This is unacceptable. The Probation Department needs to make immediate changes to allow people to see their clients faster and has to be transparent with our Board moving forward about the wait times at our juvenile facilities.”
Hahn co-authored the motion with board Chair Lindsay Horvath. At the meeting, Horvath said ensuring attorneys have timely access to their clients is not only important for honoring constitutional rights, but it helps achieve the county’s goal of “making sure our young people are getting the service and support that they need.”
“Decreasing wait times and increasing predictability for professional services at Los Padrinos is among the actions the Probation Department must take to better serve the youth entrusted to its care,” Horvath said in a statement.
The motion directs the Probation Department to return with a report in four weeks that includes three months of data on wait times, analysis about the causes and the strategies “being implemented to reduce wait times and ensure timely access to visits from counsel, social workers and other experts.”
Defense attorneys told the Southern California News Group in early May that they experienced such long wait times at Los Padrinos that attorneys have to schedule their entire day around such visits.
“Everybody knows that this is the new normal; if you get there past 8:30 a.m., then you’re waiting,” said Roshell Amezcua, director of the Juvenile Justice Law Center. “If you’re not the very first person, then you’re waiting two to three hours.”
Complaints about wait times have come up repeatedly at Probation Oversight Commission meetings in the last year.
The county Probation Department has denied the problem is widespread and indicated only a small percentage of attorneys — about 10% — experienced wait times longer than 20 minutes in April. The department previously installed four private booths in the chapel at Los Padrinos in an effort to improve wait times.
The Juvenile Justice Law Center filed a formal complaint with the department’s ombudsman May 20 reiterating that visits to Los Padrinos had become “unduly burdensome.” Wait times in excess of 45 minutes have been deemed unconstitutional in the past, according to a letter attached to the complaint.
“Here, wait times regularly exceed 45 minutes. Indeed, wait times regularly exceed two hours, and sometimes visits are denied outright,” the letter states. “The JJC’s experience does not exist in isolation. Our discussions with other juvenile defense attorneys at the Los Angeles Public Defender’s Office and the Los Angeles County Independent Defense Counsel’s Office indicate that these wait times are pervasive, common, and well-known to probation staff and directors.”
Department of Correction Commissioner Louis Molina conducted a campaign to undermine mandated outside oversight of city jails in violation of federal court orders and city law, a court filing by a high-ranking DOC investigator obtained by the Daily News alleges.
The notice of intent to sue filed by Ruben Benitez, who was DOC’s associate deputy commissioner of investigations until September, alleges Molina and top aides gave orders to withhold information from federal monitor Steve Martin, who is empowered by a 2015 consent decree and a federal judge to track violence and use of force in the jails.
The allegations come after months of calls for a judge to take away control of the troubled jails from the city.
One of Benitez’s most stunning allegations is that Molina and his former Deputy Commissioner of Investigations Manuel Hernandez ordered staff not to cooperate with the city Department of Investigation and even barred access to the DOC’s Investigations Division offices.
At one point, Molina also directed top executives to try to find a way to oust Martin as monitor, alleges the claim filed Monday afternoon with the city comptroller’s office.
Such directives could constitute violations of the foundational 1978 Mayoral Executive Order No. 16 requiring city employees including commissioners to cooperate fully with DOI.
In September, Molina retaliated against Benitez by demoting him from a senior position overseeing use of force probes to a lowly post checking job applicants and slashed his salary by $40,000, the claim alleges.
Sarena Townsend, who is representing Benitez with lawyer David Erlich, called for a criminal investigation into Benitez’s allegations.
“For years, the highest levels of DOC chiefs and commissioners relied on Mr. Benitez for his wisdom and insight, and for the federal monitor, he was an essential partner,” Townsend said.
“Mr. Benitez experienced first-hand the corruption of this administration, and was ordered to take part in it. As mandated by law, Mr. Benitez reported the illegal activity; shamefully, to no avail,” she added. “Instead, Commissioner Molina and his associates subjected Mr. Benitez to a relentless campaign of intimidation [and] coercion.”
Benitez worked for Townsend when she was DOC’s deputy commissioner for trials and investigations. Molina fired Townsend in January 2022 as one of his first acts because, she has alleged, she refused his demand to dump 2,000 pending disciplinary cases.
Kayla Mamelak, a spokeswoman for Mayor Adams, did not respond to Benitez’s allegations. Instead, she described Molina as having “dedicated himself to reversing decades of mismanagement in the jails.”
“His record of service throughout his career speaks for itself,” she said.
Benitez, a 19-year veteran of the division, kept a “running memo” documenting his interactions with Molina and his aides, Townsend said.
Hours after Molina fired Townsend on Jan. 3, 2022, he met with Benitez and made him acting deputy commissioner of investigations.
In the meeting, Molina stripped the division of the power to suspend correction officers accused of misconduct and those who had been arrested for alleged crimes without Molina’s direct approval, the claim alleges.
Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Daily News
New York City Department of Corrections Commissioner Louis Molina at the City Hall rotunda on July 31. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Daily News)
Those orders went against more than two decades of policy meant to keep the division free of political influence, Townsend said.
A week later, Molina allegedly questioned Benitez about why DOI had to “police” the Correction Department.
In a third meeting during the week of Jan. 17, 2022, Molina railed to Benitez about being “sabotaged” by staffers in investigations who were “leaking” to outsiders, the claim alleges.
Benitez tried to assure Molina that the division was only trying to comply with court orders and cooperate with the monitor.
The commissioner replied he was upset about the extent of information being given to the monitor and said the monitor should be an ally.
Benitez, concerned about Molina’s comments, conveyed them to the monitoring team, the claim states.
On Jan. 24, 2022, Molina took away Benitez’s “acting” title and returned him to associate deputy commissioner citing unspecified “concerns,” the claim alleges. In his place, Molina tapped Yvonne Pritchett, an agency attorney with three years’ experience at DOC. Her salary jumped from $97,200 in 2022 to $185,000 in 2023, records show.
In mid-February 2022, Marshall Volk, DOC’s point man for dealing with the monitor, called Benitez and told him Molina had directed his legal and executive staff to try to get Steve Martin ousted as federal monitor, the claim alleges.
On May 9, 2022, Molina made his former NYPD squad commander Manuel Hernandez the deputy commissioner for investigations. The two closely worked together when Molina was a NYPD detective and Hernandez was his commander. Molina would go on to tap several former police colleagues for key roles in the DOC.
The claim alleges Hernandez began attacking the division’s cooperation with the monitor, telling Benitez he was giving the monitor “too much information,” the monitor was “not on our side” and people who assist the monitor were “not looking out” for Molina.
He allegedly ordered Benitez not to contact the monitor or answer questions from Deputy Monitor Anna Friedberg. “Remember who signs your paychecks,” Hernandez warned.
Behind the scenes, Hernandez started manipulating the operations of the intake squad, which acts like a gatekeeper in assessing cases.
An April 3, 2023, monitor report detailed that as many as 400 cases stopped in intake had to be reopened and reinvestigated.
In January 2023, Hernandez ordered staff to stop cooperating with DOI and directed them to cut off DOI’s access to the secure Investigations Division offices in DOC headquarters in Astoria, the claim alleges.
Hernandez also boasted he had a “friend” at DOI, Deputy Commissioner Dominick Zarrella, another former NYPD lieutenant, the claim states.
Benitez reported Hernandez’s order to DOI’s then-Deputy Inspector General Richard Askin and also told the monitor.
DOI spokeswoman Diane Struzzi said Monday it was “absurd” to suggest any DOI employee acted improperly.
In March of this year, the monitor’s concerns about Hernandez came to a head. On March 29, Molina conveyed his anger at the monitor to Hernandez and blamed Benitez, the new claim alleges.
Two days later, Hernandez resigned under pressure.
On April 24, the monitor followed up with another report highlighting the dysfunctional relationship with Molina. The report described Benitez as “a well-respected and seasoned investigator and supervisor.”
The city filed a letter in the Nunez case touting Benitez’s presence to try to allay the monitor’s concerns.
But on July 3, Molina began a series of moves that ended with Benitez’s demotion. It started with a routine visit by Correction Capt. Lawrence Bond, a DOI investigator, to the Correction Academy.
DOI staff do not have to sign in. But Robert Gonzalez, the head of training and another former NYPD lieutenant hired by Molina, insisted.
The men argued. Molina and DOC’s Special Investigations Unit Director Lawrence McGugins then suspended Bond.
As he left DOC headquarters, Bond ran into Benitez. Benitez expressed surprise at the suspension and suggested Bond get a lawyer.
Two months later, on Sept. 1, Benitez was summoned to DOI headquarters in lower Manhattan and interrogated about the encounter with Bond by McGugins and Zarrella.
Four days later, Molina ordered Benitez to his office with Pritchett and Wilfredo Perez, a former union official for state prison guards whom Molina had hired to a top spot in investigations in August.
Benitez was then demoted, serving “to gag Benitez to allow Molina to continue his illegal behavior under a cloak of secrecy,” the claim alleges.
Benitez previously worked for Florence Finkle, who was DOC deputy commissioner of investigations from 2010 to 2014. “He is incredibly knowledgeable regarding correctional and internal investigative procedures, was completely devoted to the job and possesses a lot of integrity,” she said.
