California State Prison, Sacramento, once known as New Folsom, was opened in 1986 and is adjacent to Folsom State Prison, California’s second-oldest correctional facility. CSP Sacramento houses maximum and high-security offenders.
Michael A. Jones
Sacramento Bee file
An inmate died in an apparent homicide Tuesday morning after an attack by another prisoner at California State Prison, Sacramento, state corrections officials said.
Mario Ortega, 47, was being transported in a golf cart with inmate Shunki E. Fleming, 29, around 10:50 a.m. when Fleming “manipulated his way out of his hand restraints,” the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a news release. Fleming then began battering Ortega.
Prison staff immediately intervened and stopped the attack, according to the CDCR news release. Fleming was re-secured in handcuffs, and an improvised weapon was found at the scene, prison authorities said.
After life-saving measures by prison staff, Ortega was taken to an outside medical facility, where he was pronounced dead around 11:50 a.m., CDCR officials said.
Fleming has been moved to a restricted housing unit at the prison, which is also known as “New Folsom” to distinguish it from nearby Folsom State Prison, authorities said. Prison authorities are investigating the incident as a homicide, and the Office of the Inspector General has been notified, according to CDCR.
Ortega had been received at New Folsom in 1999 out of Riverside County, where he had been sentenced to life with the possibility of parole for convictions of kidnapping, carjacking and sodomy with force.
Fleming was received from Los Angeles County in 2019 to serve a 42-year sentence for second-degree robbery and assault with a semiautomatic firearm. Fleming also had two sentences for in-prison offenses — in 2021 in Kern County and in 2025 in Kings County, each for possession and manufacturing of a deadly weapon by an incarcerated person.
Ortega had additionally been sentenced, in September 2025, for in-prison possession and manufacture of a deadly weapon, according to the news release.
The Sacramento Bee
Michael McGough is a sports and local editor for The Sacramento Bee. He previously covered breaking news and COVID-19 for The Bee, which he joined in 2016. He is a Sacramento native and graduate of Sacramento State.