Jersey Journal
HUDSON COUNTY, N.J. — Answers and explanations, supplied by Hudson County Corrections Director Oscar Aviles concerning the July death of a female inmate in the Hudson County Jail have shed little light on the tragedy.
Joan Figueroa, 34, died in the Hudson County Jail July 26, after taking ill the preceding day. The cause of Figueroa’s death remains unexplained due to a logjam in the laboratories conducting autopsies and toxicological reports for the state, officials said.
Sources say at least three corrections officers who were at the scene when Figueroa died were administered gamma globulin, a substance commonly given to persons who may have been exposed to Hepatitis A or the measles.
According to a corrections officer who was on duty when Figueroa died, the dead woman was in a cell with several other inmates. Sources say Figueroa may have bled while she was in the cell.
If that is so, did any of the inmates sharing the cell with her come in contact with the dead woman’s blood? If so, were they also treated with gamma globulin? If not, why not? County officials did not return phone calls to answer these questions.
There’s also the matter of Aviles’ acknowledged “incorrect response” on Sept. 10, when asked by Hudson County Freeholder William O’Dea why there was no video footage of the incident. Security video cameras are utilized throughout the Hudson County Jail, essentially to provide visual documentation of just this sort of occurrence.
Aviles initially told freeholders a power outage struck the jail at the same time Figueroa died, knocking out security cameras.
When O’Dea said he wanted a letter from the utility company PSE&G verifying the power outage - and Freeholder Jose Munoz, who once worked at the jail, said the camera system is computerized and would hardly be incapacitated by a power surge - Aviles wrote a letter to Hudson County Administrator Abe Anton, saying he was mistaken about the power outage. Instead, he wrote, the video footage no longer existed because it had been purged from the system after 30 days.
Aviles failed to say if he ever looked at the video. Also wiped from the jail’s recording system is a phone call from the officer on duty to the jail’s infirmary, officials said.
When someone dies in the jail, the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office is supposed to be notified immediately, according to law enforcement officials. However, when this reporter called the prosecutor’s office more than a month after Figueroa’s death, officials there had no knowledge of the incident.
It’s also not clear why Figueroa, who was charged with prostitution, was never sent to a hospital for diagnosis and treatment. The jail’s infirmary is only staffed by nurses, officials said.
Considering that Hudson County has paid out millions of dollars in legal settlements to the families of inmates who have previously died in the jail, making sure an inmate who takes ill is seen by a doctor seems like an obvious, even humane precaution.
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