Girl Files Suit Over Father’s Death at Jail

The 3-year-old daughter of a man who died of meningitis while he was an inmate at a Los Angeles County jail in Castaic sued the county and the Sheriff’s Department on Thursday, alleging negligence and violation of civil rights.

Alexander Betancourt, a 45-year-old inmate at the South Facility of the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho, died in February, 1993. The suit filed on behalf of Ana Marie Betancourt by her half-brother and guardian, Alexander Betancourt III, alleges that the Sheriff’s Department denied her father medical care, resulting in his death.

“We will be able to establish that there was a conscious or reckless disregard of his then-known medical condition,” said Hermez Moreno, an attorney representing Ana Marie Betancourt.

Filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, the lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount of damages.

A sheriff’s spokeswoman declined to comment on the lawsuit.

A similar suit was filed this month in Los Angeles Superior Court by Alexander Betancourt III--Betancourt’s son--and the son’s mother, Martha Betancourt. The mother and son have also filed a separate federal lawsuit alleging violation of civil rights in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

County officials quarantined and gave antibiotics to more than 2,000 inmates at the jail’s ranch facility in February, 1993, when two other inmate trusties were stricken with meningitis. It was not known when or how Betancourt of El Monte contracted the deadly virus.