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Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson has dropped criminal charges against two Santa Rita Jail guards accused of falsifying records related to an inmate death in 2021.
Felony charges were filed against Alameda County sheriff’s deputies Sheri Baughman and Amanda Bracamontes in 2023 by former district attorney Pamela Price, who made prosecuting alleged crimes by law enforcement officers a priority during her short tenure.
In a statement Thursday, Dickson said her office was unable to prove the charges related to the death of Vinetta Martin, who died by suicide in her cell.
“The Alameda County Sheriff’s Deputies involved in the Vinetta Martin case were not criminally liable in their duties,” Dickson said in an emailed statement Thursday. “As a result, the case was dismissed.”
Martin hung herself with a bedsheet in her cell on April 3, 2021, prosecutors said when announcing the charges back in 2023.
She was classified as a “special management inmate” after telling jail staff she was suicidal and deputies were supposed to visually check on her every half hour.
Baughman and Bracamontes were accused of doctoring logbooks to make it appear that they had performed the checks.
Surveillance video allegedly showed they skipped some checks, sometimes for as long as an hour and 47 minutes, investigators said at the time.
Martin, who was 32 when she died, was arrested by Oakland police in July 2020 for an alleged assault with a deadly weapon. She was found incompetent to stand trial and was awaiting transfer to a psychiatric hospital in Napa.
“Ms. Martin’s death was truly tragic, and we hold her family in our thoughts,” Dickson said.
This isn’t the first case in which Dickson has dropped charges against jail guards that were filed by her predecessor.
In August, Dickson dropped all charges against most of the 11 guards and staff accused in the 2021 death of inmate Maurice Monk.
The 45-year-old Monk died in his cell in November 2021 and was found in a pool of bodily fluids after being dead for about three days.
Guards allegedly ignored his condition even as meals delivered to him piled up uneaten and Wellpath nurses allegedly just tossed his medications into the cell, according to civil lawsuits filed against the county and the health care company.
Dickson said she will still prosecute three of the defendants — two Alameda County sheriff’s deputies, Donall Rowe and Robin Hayer, and one former deputy, Thomas Mowrer — who are all facing one count each of dependent adult abuse.
Hayer, also known as Robinderpal Singh Hayer, is also charged with falsification of an official document.
Price was recalled in November 2024 amid voter anger about a perception of infighting in the District Attorney’s Office and allegations that she was too lenient on violent crime.
— Story by Kiley Russell and Katy St. Clair, Bay City News
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