A 65-year-old man accused of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14 has been found dead in his Santa Clara County jail cell, the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office said.
At about 2 p.m. Thursday, Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputies assigned to the Elmwood Jail in Milpitas were conducting welfare checks in Building M4 and found the inmate unresponsive in his cell, the sheriff’s office said. Deputies and medical workers immediately performed life-saving measures on the inmate by administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation until medics arrived.
At approximately 2:15 p.m., Milpitas firefighters and paramedics arrived and took the inmate to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 2:52 p.m.
Preliminary indications are suicide, according to the sheriff’s office. The inmate was housed alone at the time of the incident, the sheriff’s office said.
The man had been booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail Tuesday on suspicion of multiple charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14 years of age, stemming from a San Jose Police Department Investigation, the sheriff’s office said.
The jail in Milpitas along with the one in San Jose are managed by Sheriff Robert Jonsen, who replaced longtime Laurie Smith, who did not run again. Smith had been criticized for her management of the jail including the 2015 beating death of inmate Michael Tyree. Three jail deputies were convicted of second-degree murder in Tyree’s death, but their convictions were reversed in August.
The sheriff’s office is following standard procedure for a jail death by conducting a joint
investigation among the Sheriff’s Office, District Attorney’s Office, and the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office.
Officials will not release the man’s name until his family can be notified. — Bay City News
Good riddance! Waste of time and resources.
Shame on you
He saved the taxpayers money. People die every day.
What happened to innocent till proven guilty?! He died in their care, that’s horrible
He was a husband a father a grandfather and hard worker
Obviously he was in jail for a reason. If he’s innocent… I feel bad for his family. If he was guilty… the world is a whole lot safer w/out him in it.
Don’t jump to conclusions. It’s the DA’s job to prove he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Now that he’s dead, we’ll never have the trial. But just because he was arrested doesn’t make him guilty. Police make mistakes all the time. Look at who is the head of the police union in San Jose — an accused drug kingpin.
Do you understand the amount of evidence the DA needs to have in order to make an arrest for this type of charge? Stop being a pedophile apologist. Look at the statistics. Sex offenses hardly ever lead to an arrest. If this man was arrested there was a huge amount of proof that he did this
My God, you’re right. We need to scrap this whole idea of “innocent until proven guilty”. I don’t even know where we came up with such a crazy concept. And let’s get rid of the “criminal justice system”. Once the police arrest you, you’re guilty. No need for jury trials or judges. Just lock ’em up and throw away the key. Thanks, Robert, for opening my eyes!!!
Suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. This is the court of public opinion. You’re only innocent if you didn’t do it. To believe everyone is innocent until proven guilty is to believe the police consistently get it wrong. And I DON’T believe that.
If you want to defend sex offenders, have at it. I’m not that stupid. If he was really innocent, I don’t think he’d commit suicide. He’d fight for his innocence and freedom.