A deputy with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department investigates an alleged murder in an unrelated incident ( Photo courtesy of OnSceneTV.)
A San Diego County Sheriff’s Deputy charged by federal prosecutors with using excessive force on a man in pretrial custody and writing a false report in order to cover up what happened was convicted by a federal jury Friday.
Prosecutors say Jeremiah Manuyag Flores, 45, shoved the 57-year-old victim into the walls of a holding cell last year, causing the man to suffer a head wound and a spinal injury that required surgery and that led to months of hospitalization.
After the shove, Flores failed to provide medical aid to the man, whose hands and legs were in chains at the time, according to prosecutors, who said another deputy found the victim lying in a pool of blood more than two hours later.
Flores, who was assigned to the Court Services Bureau at the San Diego Central Courthouse at the time, later claimed in a report that “no force was used,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The trial was Flores’ second in the case, as a previous San Diego jury deadlocked last month. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said the jury in the second trial deliberated for two hours before finding Flores guilty of two counts, deprivation of rights under color of law and falsification of records in a federal investigation.
Flores is due to be sentenced in April.
–City News Service
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