{"id":100171,"date":"2025-08-21T20:24:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T20:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/100171\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T20:24:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T20:24:16","slug":"woman-held-days-against-her-will-in-miami-mental-health-facility-lawsuit-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/100171\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman held days against her will in Miami mental health facility, lawsuit claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesica L\u00f3pez was walking in Little Havana one afternoon when she came upon an abandoned building that was set to be demolished. Her reaction to the building\u2019s impending demolition led her to getting picked up by police and detained in a mental health facility for nine days against her will, she says.<\/p>\n

The building reminded her of her childhood in Colombia, and a flood of memories from her homeland rushed through her mind. She felt uneasy and approached a Miami police officer asking why the building was going to be destroyed.<\/p>\n

The now 33-year-old was experiencing a mental health episode when this happened in April 2022 and likely needed temporary outpatient care, said her Miami attorney, Ricardo Martinez-Cid. She was going through a messy divorce that included domestic violence accusations, leaving her underweight and sleep deprived. With no family close by except for her two young children, she needed support, Martinez-Cid said.<\/p>\n

Instead, L\u00f3pez was locked up in crisis stabilization unit with people suffering severe mental health issues, where she was given medications that pushed her deep into a haze of confusion, she told the Herald.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard because you saw people eating out of the trash can. People sitting in their own filth in wheelchairs. People screaming all night. It was horrible,\u201d L\u00f3pez said.<\/p>\n

The officer took her to Banyan Health System\u2019s Centralized Receiving Facility, Detox & Crisis Stabilization Unit on West Flagler Street because she was confused and he could not find any contact for her next of kin to pick her up, Martinez-Cid said.<\/p>\n

Staff at the facility evalutated L\u00f3pez. Records from the examination state she appeared disorganized and anxious, but medical staff found her judgment to be fair, she was acting calmly and cooperative without any unusual movements, and she was not hallucinating or having delusions during the interview. L\u00f3pez aslo told staff she had no current or past suicidal ideations or a history of substance abuse.<\/p>\n

\"Yesica<\/p>\n

Yesica L\u00f3pez talks on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, about her time inside a Miami mental health crisis center in April 2022. Attorneys for L\u00f3pez argue in a pending lawsuit that she was held for nine days against her will inside the facility.<\/p>\n

She also told staff that she was going through a divorce and was homesick for Colombia, Martinez-Cid added.<\/p>\n

Medical staff inputted in her evaluation form that they diagnosed L\u00f3pez with schizophreniform disorder — similar to schizophrenia, but with shorter duration of symptoms. Despite reporting in their examination results that L\u00f3pez\u2019s judgement was fair and she acted calmly and was not experiencing hallucinations or delusions during her interview, medical staff wrote in the therapy notes of their report that she was \u201cdisoriented, delusional and with poor insight into mental health status.\u201d<\/p>\n

They specified that she was to stay at the facility for five to seven days, Martinez-Cid said.<\/p>\n

Baker Act invoked<\/p>\n

The evaluation was conducted under Florida\u2019s Baker Act, which allows for the temporary detention of people experiencing mental health emergencies in a hospital or crisis center for 72 hours. The next morning, a Banyan doctor began prescribing L\u00f3pez drugs, including sedatives, antipsychotics, anticholinergics, benzodiazepines, benzatropines and pain relievers, her attorney said.<\/p>\n

Martinez-Cid was able to have L\u00f3pez released, but it took him three days to do so. . He learned of her situation from lawyers from the Cuban American Bar Association\u2019s Pro Bono Project, who were helping Lopez with her divorce case against her now ex-husband.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s now representing her in her false imprisonment and negligence lawsuit against Banyan Health filed last year in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court.<\/p>\n

The complaint was amended months later to include the city of Miami, since L\u00f3pez\u2019s attorney\u2019s argued, the officer did not comply with the requirements of the Baker Act when he took her to Banyan. The amended complaint argued L\u00f3pez was not suffering from neglect at the time the officer took her there, nor was she refusing to care for herself in a way that posed personal harm or harm to others.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez and the city reached a settlement in June, according to court records. Martinez-Cid said the details of the settlement are confidential. The city did not immediately respond to the Herald\u2019s queries about the settlement.<\/p>\n

\u2018She was so drugged out\u2019<\/p>\n

Banyan, through its attorneys, denies any wrongdoing associated with L\u00f3pez\u2019s time in the facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cBanyan takes the confidentiality rights of its patients seriously and does not disclose the psychological conditions of its patients or the care and treatment they receive,\u201d attorney Joshua Walker said in a statement to the Herald. \u201cThe allegations made by Ms. L\u00f3pez and her attorney are untrue and directly contradicted by the evidence, but we will not be commenting further at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martinez-Cid wrote in the lawsuit that the drugs, which were administered to L\u00f3pez daily, caused her to \u201cbecome disoriented, confused, incoherent, and functionally impaired and experience increased anxiety and distress, auditory and visual hallucinations, and delusions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I saw her, she was in tears. She was so drugged out. She just kept asking, \u2018When can I see my kids. Please let me out of here.\u2019 It was horrible,\u201d Martinez-Cid told the Herald.<\/p>\n

The 72-hour window to keep L\u00f3pez at the facility under the Baker Act expired on April 22, but she would be kept there for another six days with little to no contact with anyone on the outside, including her mother, who had flown to Florida from Colombia to help her daughter.<\/p>\n

Martinez-Cid went to the facility on April 25, but staff would not allow him to see L\u00f3pez, he said.<\/p>\n

Martinez-Cid spoke with L\u00f3pez\u2019s mother, Magnolia Perez, who had by then spoken with her daughter. L\u00f3pez told her mother she wanted to leave, according to the complaint. Martinez-Cid filled out the facility\u2019s application to seek release. The paperwork Banyan provided stated L\u00f3pez was a \u201cvoluntary patient,\u201d which was never clearly communicated to her nor her family, Martinez-Cid said.<\/p>\n

Perez, with Martinez-Cid, went back to the facility the next day, where staff said they would not release L\u00f3pez because she suddenly decided to stay, according to the lawsuit. Staff refused to let Martinez-Cid speak to L\u00f3pez to confirm the decision to remain there was hers, the lawsuit alleges.<\/p>\n

Delays in getting her released<\/p>\n

Both L\u00f3pez\u2019s mother and Martinez-Cid asked for a second opinion about L\u00f3pez\u2019s condition, but were told by the staff doctor that that wouldn\u2019t be possible while she remained at the facililty, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

By April 27, L\u00f3pez was desperate to leave the facility and tried to get the nurses\u2019 attention. They administered more antipsychotic drugs and sedatives, and told her mother she wouldn\u2019t be discharged that day because they had to increase her medication, the lawsuit states.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez formally applied to be discharged the next day, but when Perez arrived, staff told her that her daughter would not be released, the complaint states. She called Martinez-Cid, who went to the facility to demand L\u00f3pez\u2019s discharge, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told them I am not leaving this facility without her. Have her evaluated now. Bring in her doctor,\u201d Martinez-Cid said.<\/p>\n

Martinez-Cid said while he was there, staff said they would call the police if he didn\u2019t leave. He told the Herald he welcomed the police showing up so they could see what was going on inside the facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, Great, because I want a light to be shined on this place,\u201d Martinez-Cid said.<\/p>\n

Banyan let L\u00f3pez go home with Perez later that day, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\"Magnolia<\/p>\n

Magnolia P\u00e9rez,talks about her daughter Yesica L\u00f3pez\u2019s time inside a mental health crisis center in Miami in April 2022. Attorneys for L\u00f3pez argue in a pending lawsuit that she was held against her will for nine days inside the facility.<\/p>\n

In the years since L\u00f3pez\u2019s time at Banyan, she has since finalized her divorce, has 50\/50 custody of her children and is working as a cashier at CVS.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a terrible ordeal, but I have been healing because of my mother and my kids,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

As part of her divorce proceedings, she had to undergo a psychological evaluation with a court-appointed clinical psychologist, who found her to be \u201cpsychologically stable and capable of managing her own affairs, and capable of adequately providing caregiving to her children without the need to be supervised,\u201d reads the evaluation, which was included in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\u2018It has to stop\u2019<\/p>\n

Banyan settled in March with the family of a woman who was admitted for cocaine-induced psychosis in May 2021 and kept there for 15 days. The lawsuit, filed by the woman\u2019s mother, states lab results came up negative for cocaine, but the woman was experiencing acute psychosis when she was transfered to Banyan from Baptist Hospital.<\/p>\n

\"Yesica<\/p>\n

Yesica L\u00f3pez talks on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, about her time inside a Miami mental health crisis center in April 2022. Attorneys for L\u00f3pez argue in a pending lawsuit that she was held against her will inside the facility.<\/p>\n

While at Banyan, the lawsuit alleges the woman was confined against her will, medicated and hit by staff. In the settlement, Banyan agreed to pay the woman\u2019s mother $914,792 and $101,643 to the woman\u2019s minor daughter, according to court records.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know others have suffered the same thing. We\u2019re funding this as taxpayers, and it has to stop,\u201d Martinez-Cid said. \u201cThey are using the law that is meant to protect people against these people, to justify another night in their bed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yesica L\u00f3pez was walking in Little Havana one afternoon when she came upon an abandoned building that was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[67113,97,4217,67111,259,67112,260,67110,67109],"class_list":{"0":"post-100171","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-banyan","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-lopez","11":"tag-martinez-cid","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-mental-health-facility","14":"tag-mentalhealth","15":"tag-ricardo-martinez-cid","16":"tag-yesica-lopez"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}