Monmouth County Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
Last year, Amit Bornstein died in Monmouth County Jail in Freehold. He was a 22 year old man from Marlboro who took care of his brother while his father was traveling abroad. In July of 2010, he was arrested at his home following a failure to appear in court on minor offenses. He was forcibly restrained by officers after he allegedly because abusive to the officers during his intake. Then, seven hours later he was found dead at Monmouth County Jail, in Freehold, NJ.
Recently, the Monmouth County Prosecutors Office cleared the officers involved of any wrongdoing and closed the case. Monmouth County Prosecutor Peter E. Warshaw Jr. said that his decision to close the case was based upon a medical examiner’s autopsy report, which found that Bornstein had a pre-existing fatal health condition. In the report, the medial examiner explained that Bornstein resisted restraint by refusing to place his hand behind his back to avoid being handcuffed. Shortly thereafter, Bornstein was pepper spray, shackled and still resisted. About an hour later, his heartbeat slowed and his died. He did have restraint marks on his body but this was found to have been caused by his owns resistance to the officers. The family believes that he was brutally murdered and they are filing suit.
This situation raises many questions. First of which is how come this intake area is not under video surveillance? And if Bornstein was restrained as described why was he not under constant surveillance? What did the other detainees witness? The intake area is a busy place, did any of the other detainees get interviewed and give statements?