A district attorney for the San Francisco Bay Area who was elected on November 5 filed criminal charges this week against 11 current and past staff members of a county jail for the death of a man in their care in 2021 who was left alone in his cell for days.
Attorney General for Alameda County, Pamela Price, said Thursday that seven sheriff’s deputies, two past deputies, and two medical staff members at Santa Rita Jail were charged with felony dependent adult abuse.
If found guilty, each defendant could spend up to four years in state jail. Maurice Monk, 45, was found unconscious in his cell in November 2021, after being locked up for a month.
Three of the defendants are also charged with falsifying documents connected to his death.
Price was elected in 2022 on a progressive platform that included making prison officials responsible for deaths that happened inside of prisons.
After Price was removed by voters in a rare recall election, it is not clear if the charges will be brought by her replacement.
Monk was arrested in October for being in a bad mood and refused to get off a transit bus. “He was sent to jail because he failed to appear on a bench warrant for a previous misdemeanor offense on a transit bus line that was not connected to this,” her office said.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Monk’s family sued the jail and said that video from deputies’ body cameras showed that they and nurses dropped food and medicine into Monk’s cell while he was unconscious for three days.
Last year, the county paid the family $7 million to end their case.
