By Judith Lucas
The Star-Ledger
UNION COUNTY, N.J. — Union County has agreed to pay $780,000 to settle the case of a 17-year-old boy who committed suicide in the Juvenile Detention Center in Elizabeth in 2003.
The death of Eddie Sinclair Jr. made headlines because he died in an overcrowded, dirty detention center about which officials had repeatedly received warnings from the state to improve conditions. The teen hanged himself on May 10, 2003, by tying a bedsheet to an exposed and broken fire sprinkler state authorities had ordered removed months earlier.
Sinclair’s mother, Yolanda Padilla, said the money does little to erase the loss of her son, who had been jailed by police for violating his probation over a stolen bicycle. Sinclair committed suicide less than 12 hours after being arrested.
“I’m just tired,” she said. “I don’t think there is any justice, I’m just ready to get it over with.”
The settlement was approved, 8-0, during a meeting of the Union County freeholders Thursday night. Freeholder Chester Holmes was absent.
Padilla sued Union County because Eddie’s death was preventable, she said.
She said she agreed to settle the wrongful death claim and accept the money from the county for her own peace of mind.
“I am not happy about it,” said Padilla, 39. "(But) it was just lingering on.”
Settlements also were brokered with Trinitas Hospital and Correctional Health Services Inc. which treated Sinclair, and Siemens Building Technology Inc. and Firemasters, companies involved in the installation of the fire sprinkler head. Padilla promised the entities she would not divulge details of those settlements.
The settlement closes an embarrassing chapter for Union County, which was beset with criticism from the state for the poor conditions in which it kept juveniles in the months leading up to Sinclair’s death.
The county was under increased state scrutiny for running a sub-standard facility despite more than two years of warnings to improve conditions. The county ignored various state directives to stop overcrowding. Three youths were often jammed into a single cell, and were locked down for 18 to 20 hours at a time. At various points, there were as many as 70 youths in the facility, even though it was built for half that number.
Sinclair’s suicide occurred without the notice of any of the guards who were supposed to be watching him. He was locked and isolated in his cell, allowed out only to speak to his mother and participate in a court hearing.
It was Sinclair’s roommates, not the guards, who found him.
Sinclair’s death brought changes, many forced on Union County by the state Juvenile Justice Commission - which oversees juvenile detention centers.
The county had to fumigate for rodents, paint walls and clean grates and limit the population at the facility to 34 - the number the Juvenile Justice Commission said it could safely keep in the building perched on top of a parking garage on Elizabethtown Plaza.
More than a year after Sinclair’s death, the state Office of the Child Advocate looked into Union County’s handling of the juvenile detention center and criticized it for the deplorable conditions to which Sinclair and other juveniles were exposed.
As a result of the state criticism, a new detention center is being built in Linden which will have room for 76 juveniles. The new building should be ready by March 2008, according to the county.
Copyright 2007 The Star-Ledger