US grand jury indicts 3 in death of college student restrained in jail cell in coastal Georgia

SAVANNAH, Georgia – A grand jury has indicted has indicted three people in the death of a 21-year-old student whose body was found in restraints at a jail in Savannah, Georgia.

Two of those indicted, Maxine Evans and Jason Kenny, are ex-jail employees at the Chatham County jail and Gregory Brown was a contract health worker.

Indictments returned Wednesday charge all three with involuntary manslaughter. Kenny is also charged with aggravated assault and cruelty to an inmate. Evans and Brown are also charged with public record fraud and Brown faces an additional charge of making a false statement. It’s unclear if they have attorneys.

Mathew Ajibade, 21, was found dead Jan. 1 strapped to a restraining chair inside an isolation cell at the jail. The Savannah College of Art and Design student had been arrested after a fight with his girlfriend. The sheriff’s office has said Ajibade fought violently during booking and injured three deputies, one of whom suffered a concussion and a broken nose.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation was called in to handle the case, and few details were released as to what happened to Ajibade in the jail. On May 8, Sheriff Al St. Lawrence announced that nine deputies had been fired in connection with Ajibade’s death. On June 4, attorneys for Ajibade’s family released a copy of his death certificate, which showed the coroner had ruled his death a homicide caused by blunt-force trauma.

Dr. Bill Wessinger, the Chatham County coroner, said Ajibade suffered several blows to his head and upper body and some blood was found in his skull case.

“My recollection is none of them by themselves would have necessarily been fatal,” Wessinger recently said of the injuries.

Chatham County District Attorney Meg Heap announced weeks ago that she planned to ask a grand-jury for indictments in Ajibade’s death. The prosecutor’s spokeswoman, Kristin Fulford, said Heap did not plan to comment on the indictments.

The case has put an uncomfortable spotlight on St. Lawrence, the 80-year-old sheriff who has held the office since 1992. On one hand, the sheriff has promised changes since Ajibade’s death. He fired the deputies deemed responsible, hired consultants to review jail operations and temporarily removed all stun guns from the jail until deputies could be re-trained in their proper use.

“I ain’t covering up for nobody. OK?” St. Lawrence told reporters at a June 4 news conference.

At the same time, the sheriff has stood up for his employees who work at the 2,300-bed jail. He said on average 41 deputies are injured each month in scuffles and fights with inmates.

Ajibade’s family in Maryland has hired attorneys including Florida defence lawyer Mark O’Mara, who defended former neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in the shooting of Trayvon Martin. Attorneys for the family have asked a Savannah judge to disqualify Heap as top prosecutor on the case, arguing she has political reasons to ignore possible criminal charges against the sheriff. Heap dismissed the claims as baseless.

Attorneys for Ajibade’s family say he suffered from bipolar disorder and his girlfriend gave police a bottle of his prescription medication when they arrested him. O’Mara has said he suspects Ajibade was having a manic episode at the jail when deputies “beat the (expletive) out of him to get control of him.”

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This story has been corrected to remove reference to felony murder.