Death Of Inmate At Donovan State Prison Under Investigation

SAN DIEGO, CA -- The death of an inmate at a California state prison in Otay Mesa remained under investigation as of Friday.

James Acuna, 58, was pronounced dead at 11:43 a.m. Monday at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, according to Vicky Waters, press secretary for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The cause of Acuna’s death and the circumstances surrounding it are pending the results of an autopsy report, Waters said Friday afternoon in an email to Patch.

According to a news report Thursday from Times of San Diego, Acuna may have been dead for two or three days before his body was discovered.

Waters did not confirm that report; she said CDCR is “awaiting the autopsy to be concluded.”

“Because it is an active investigation, we are unable to release further details at this time,” she said.

Acuna began serving a third state-prison term in October 2014 for a 16-year sentence out of Los Angeles County for assault with a deadly weapon as a second striker.

“He had previously been in CDCR twice before: once in 1984 with a six-year sentence for robbery with a firearm, and in 2000 with an eight-year sentence for burglary first [degree],” Waters said.

Donovan, the only state prison in San Diego County, is presently home to some 3,700 male inmates. The facility located less than two miles from the U.S.-Mexico border is designed to house 2,992 inmates, though it has a current occupancy rate of 124 percent, according to CDCR’s most recent weekly population report.

Image via California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation