SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – The family of a 61-year-old California inmate who died of the coronavirus sued state corrections officials Tuesday.
The family blames a botched transfer of infected inmates to San Quentin State Prison that killed 28 inmates and a correctional officer last year.
His family’s attorneys said it’s the first such federal civil rights lawsuit stemming from officials’ decision to transfer 122 inmates from the California Institute for Men near Los Angeles to the prison north of San Francisco in late May.
But a class-action lawsuit is pending in Marin County Superior Court on behalf of other San Quentin inmates infected in what state officials have acknowledged was a disastrous, if well-intended, transfer.
