Charges dropped against doctor in San Diego County jail death

SAN DIEGO (CN) — After a jury deadlocked on involuntary manslaughter charges against a San Diego County jail doctor who treated a woman who later died in her cell, prosecutors asked the judge to dismiss the case.

Prosecutors did everything possible in their legal, evidentiary, and ethical capacity to present a comprehensive case against both Dr. Friederike Von Lintig and Danalee Pascua, but “there is nothing more we can do legally, evidentiary, to change the outcome,” Deputy District Attorney John Dunlap said Wednesday during a hearing at San Diego County’s East County Superior Court in El Cajon.

San Diego Superior Court Judge John Thompson granted the prosecutor’s motion to dismiss the case against Von Lintig.

Von Lintig was the physician on duty at Las Colinas Detention and Reentry Facility, a San Diego’s women’s jail, in 2019 when Elisa Serna died in the jail’s medical observation unit after she struck her head and fell.

Pascua, a nurse at the facility, witnessed Serna’s fall while attempting to take Serna’s vital signs.

Both Pascua and Von Lintig faced one count each of involuntary manslaughter. On Friday, a jury acquitted Pascua but deadlocked on the charge against Von Lintig.

“It’s very clear to this court,” Thompson said, “that Ms. Serna’s death was both untimely and tragic.”

Serna — who had been booked in the jail on suspicion of theft and drug charges days earlier — was pregnant, suffering from drug withdrawal, and complained of vomiting, nausea and fainting. An investigation by the San Diego County Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board released in 2021 found that Serna had pneumonia and was dehydrated, and had collapsed in her cell after a seizure.

Serna had been in custody for five days when she died.

“There is clearly plenty of fault to go around in this case,” Thompson added, but fault and damages will have to be litigated in the Serna family’s concurrent civil lawsuit in federal court against San Diego County and a number of other defendants, including Von Lintig and Pascua.

“We echo everything that the court said in this matter,” said Dana Grimes, Von Lintig’s attorney after the hearing. “She feels vindicated.”

The family’s claims include deliberate indifference to medical needs, negligence, failure to properly train, failure to properly supervise and discipline, wrongful death and other claims. They seek damages after a jury trial.

“What we intend to do in the civil case, which is not possible in a criminal case, is we intend to hold every single person at the sheriff’s department accountable for their abysmal treatment of Elisa Serna. For the way they dismissed her and accused her of lying, malingering, and faking it when she was just begging for help,” said Grace Jun, the Serna family’s attorney.

Now that the criminal trial has been resolved, proceedings in the civil case can move forward, Jun added.

Elisa’s mother Paloma Serna expressed disappointment in the mistrial. “It was very disappointing to know that the criminal case is over. Everyone fought hard to get justice for Elisa Serna," Paloma Serna said. “We waited four years for the day to come, and it’s very disappointing to know that the jurors couldn’t convict the doctor or the nurse for this crime. As video has shown in the courtroom, how awful, how torturous, how Elisa had to suffer the way she did, to die in that position on that cell floor. As the video has shown, many people were involved.”

Jun said the Serna family wants video footage of Elisa’s treatment and death in jail that was presented as evidence during the criminal trial to be released to the public, but the footage is under a protective order in the civil case.

It was heartbreaking to see footage of her daughter suffering, Paloma Serna said, but “it needs to be put out there again for the public to know what’s going on.”

She added: “She’s not forgotten. We are still fighting."

In 2022, the California state auditor found 185 people died in San Diego County jails from 2006 to 2020, one of the highest rates of inmate deaths in the state.

Last year, 13 people died in the custody of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.