Man accused of faking illness in jail found dead

Jun 5, 2016

On August 6, 2016, Max Gracia, aged 22, was arrested for armed robbery. During the arrest, he was bitten by a police dog for 3 minutes before he was able to break away and jump into the lake to escape it. He was subsequently taken to jail.

On August 9, he complained to jail staff that he was very ill and could not walk. The nurse made a note in his records that he was “faking or exaggerating his medical condition and inability to get up.” By the next morning, Gracia was dead.

“They killed my son. They could have just taken him out back and gunned him down,” his mother, Willine Gracia, told the press. “They allowed my son to lay there, torture, suffer and die.”

Gracia’s autopsy showed that he developed an E Coli infection from the dog bite that turned into sepsis, which can be a fatal blood infection.

This infection led to organ failure, extremely low blood pressure and then death. He had been evaluated after the bite at the Orange County jail infirmary but was discharged without getting a thorough evaluation.

On the night of August 9, he complained to staff that he couldn’t get out of bed to take his medication. The nurse on staff that evening told his officer that Gracia was faking the illness in an “implicit refusal for medication.”

At one point he was ordered to move to a different cell, one with a camera, so that they could better ascertain if he was truly ill or not. When he was “groaning in a lethargic manner” in pain on the floor and unable to move to the new cell, he was cited for his refusal to move. They left him on the floor, and by the next morning he died in the hospital.

The nurse who accused him of faking his illness has resigned, and two other staff members have gotten reprimanded. County officials have made a statement saying that they have made changes, including better training for staff members.

“After Gracia’s death, a thorough medical review of his care was conducted by the Orange County Health Services Department. This review identified opportunities to improve processes and education for the Corrections Health Services Division,” the statement said. “All of the recommendations were adopted and have since been implemented.”