Federal jury finds Sheriff’s personnel liable in inmate’s fentanyl death
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (KESQ) – A federal jury today found that the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department bore some responsibility for the death of a 29-year-old Beaumont man who suffered fentanyl poisoning in jail while awaiting trial for attempted murder, recommending that the dead man’s family receive millions for their loss.
“After a week of trial, a jury unanimously found in favor of the Matus family and awarded $13.5 million in damages,” plaintiffs’ attorney Christian Contreras said. “The trial was vigorously defended by the county, but members of the Riverside community have now spoken, and the county jails need to be reformed to prevent further inmate deaths.”
The verdicts were returned to U.S. District Court Judge Sunshine Sykes in downtown Riverside on Wednesday morning. No future hearings were immediately scheduled, and there was no word on whether the county intends to appeal.
Executive Office spokeswoman Brooke Federico told City News Service that, because jurors determined the county was only “40% at fault … the county is responsible for $5.4 million of the total amount.”
The mother of Richard Matus Jr., Lisa Matus, filed the civil action against Sheriff Chad Bianco, several deputies and the county as a whole in early 2023, alleging violations of her son’s Constitutional right to equal protection under the law, deprivation of future relations with his family due to official negligence, failure to follow safe practices in the correctional system and other failings.
The county countered in court documents that Matus was responsible for his own actions and that the defendants lacked “sufficient knowledge or information or belief ” that there were “grounds (for) the allegations.”
Lisa Matus sued not only on behalf of herself, but her eldest son’s young daughter and son, whose identities were not disclosed.
The suit pivoted on whether correctional deputies assigned to the Byrd Detention Center in Murrieta properly reacted when they were alerted to the fact Matus was in medical distress by a fellow inmate on the night of Aug. 11, 2022.
The plaintiffs characterized the mishandling of the emergency as a systemic problem, noting that Matus was one of 22 inmates who died in the county correctional system that year.
“The individuals named in the lawsuit were repeatedly put on notice of great dangers which existed within Riverside County’s correctional facilities through the long history of in-custody deaths (and) the record-breaking amount of fentanyl overdoses throughout all county correctional facilities,” according to the plaintiffs’ complaint. “Long before Richard Matus Jr.’s death, the sheriff’s department knew there existed great indifference to the safety and protection of inmates.”
In one of the defendants’ briefs, they asserted “there were no grounds for liability” under more than one of the theories put forward by the plaintiffs.
The bulk of the case centered on Deputy Angel Rojas’ response to the inmate intercom call stating Matus was catatonic and in need of immediate “medical intervention,” according to court papers.
The plaintiffs argued that the “endemic, ongoing and unabated risks of injury or death to inmates” tied to illicit drugs and other circumstances within the jail system stemmed from institutional carelessness.
It was unclear where Matus had obtained the fentanyl. He was pronounced dead in his jail cell.
At the time, he was awaiting trial, along with his younger brother, now 26-year-old Raymond Emilio Paul Matus of Beaumont, for a violent takeover robbery at a cannabis store in Banning on June 23, 2018.
Ray Matus was ultimately convicted of attempted murder, robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and sentence-enhancing allegations of using a deadly weapon in the commission of a felony and inflicting great bodily injury.
He was sentenced last year to 21 years to life in state prison.
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