Families of people who died in Monterey County Jail are turning up legal pressure on the County.

In the wake of the sixth inmate death this year at Monterey County Jail, several families of people who have died at the jail have launched wrongful death lawsuits against the County of Monterey and its health care contractor at the facility.

On Oct. 24, 34-year-old Edgar Maldonado died at the jail, where he was being held while awaiting trial. The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office has tapped the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office to investigate the cause and manner of death.

Maldonado is the sixth person to have died at the jail in 2023, according to the Sheriff’s Office. He is believed to be the 27th inmate to have died there since a 2015 class action settlement over inadequate inmate health care conditions. In September, a federal judge ruled that Wellpath, the jail’s for-profit health care provider, was in “substantial noncompliance” with the settlement’s terms, which called for the County and Wellpath to improve deficiencies in the jail’s medical, mental and dental health care.

That continued noncompliance is now being cited by personal injury law firm Arias Sanguinetti in multiple lawsuits filed on behalf of family members of people who have died at the Salinas jail in recent years. After suing the County and Wellpath last year on behalf of the family of Carlos Regalado, who died by suicide in March 2021, the law firm filed complaints earlier this year representing the families of Juan Carlos Chavez, who died by suicide in April 2022, and Jimmy Steven Hall, who allegedly had multiple untreated medical conditions before collapsing in his cell in April 2023.

Arias Sanguinetti partner Jamie Goldstein says her firm is also planning to file three more lawsuits in the coming months representing the families of David Sand, Matthew Medina and Jose Garcia Paniagua – all of whom died at the jail in the past 12 months. The complaints will all name the County and Wellpath as defendants, Goldstein says, while they differ in also naming various Wellpath and Sheriff’s Office officials, including Sheriff Tina Nieto and her predecessor, Steve Bernal.

“The repeated occurrences where a person comes into the jail and is not initially evaluated properly at intake, both medically and for mental health issues, is often resulting in the deaths of these inmates,” Goldstein says.

Eric Sand, whose 29-year-old son David Sand died at the jail in November 2022, says his lawsuit could be filed as early as this week. Sand says he is particularly disturbed at the jail’s treatment of mentally ill people like his son, who had a documented history of schizophrenia and whose cause of death was ruled as acute water intoxication from the excessive and compulsive drinking of water.

“Whatever’s going on in the Monterey County Jail has to stop,” Sand says. He lays blame on Wellpath and its for-profit business model and also criticizes the Board of Supervisors for renewing the company’s contract at the jail last year. “Wellpath’s profit comes out of not addressing inmates’ needs. They minimize care of the inmates because it adds more profit for them – it’s strictly a money-making industry.”

Representatives for Wellpath, the Sheriff’s Office and the County of Monterey did not respond to requests for comment.