Another Death Under Embattled Sheriff Frank Provenzano's Watch

Recently I was attending a retirement conference with a few of my long time correctional friends and was horrified to hear there was another tragic inmate death of a 46 year old man in the Somerset County Jail on April 23, 2019.

As someone who stays up to date on local Somerset County news and after hearing about yet another loss, it simply just ripped open an old wound for me.

Jaquan Williams, age 23, was booked into the Somerset County Jail on January 2, 2017 and was found unresponsive in his cell January 3rd. When Jaquan's mother, Patricia, heard of his death in the Somerset County Jail, she immediately fell to her knees, destroyed by the grief of the sudden loss of her son.

Despite his mother's anguished cries for more details of why her son isn't with us anymore, her pleas have gone unanswered.
https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/news/crime/jersey-mayhem/2017/01/13/man-dies-somerset-county-jail-family-seeks-answers/96547932/

If this latest death hasn't driven you to your feet to seek answers, it should as the Somerset County Jail is now one of the top in the state (if not the country) for inmate deaths over the past few years. Something that I'm sure N.J. Attorney General Gurbir Grewal is taking note of.

Here's a brief timeline of the last few years of how embattled County Sheriff Provenzano has been:
2016: Somerset County Sheriff Sheriff Provenzano agrees to pay $700,000 ( in taxpayer money) to settle a negligence case for FAILING to protect, Daniel Klein, an inmate with suicidal tendencies:
https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/news/crime/jersey-mayhem/2016/11/10/somerset-county-jail-inmates-family-gets-699k-settlement/93586176/

2017: Jaquan Williams (as discussed above) is booked into the Somerset County Jail on January 2nd, and found unconscious in his cell January 3rd. No further details were released after this article.
https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/news/local/somerset-county/2018/01/04/mother-dead-inmate-sues-somerset-county-jail/992406001/

2019: Sheriff Provenzano and his Jail administrators are accused of racial discrimination and workplace harassment by a correctional officer. This leads to the Sheriff forcing his Asst. Warden to immediately resign over racially driven social media posts.
https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/news/local/courts/2019/02/01/somerset-county-sheriffs-officer-alleges-racial-discrimination-against-department-jail-lawsuit/2730859002/

Respectfully, Sheriff Provenzano, after numerous inmate deaths on your watch , maybe it's time to get your house in order on behalf of all Somerset County residents who are continuing to flip the bill for these death settlements.

Whether to recuperate or pay a to debt to society, county jail should NOT be a death sentence to anyone. I'm happy to hear the embattled County Sheriff is finally stepping down after two decades at the Sheriff's Department.

I can only hope one of his soon to be successors in Darrin Russo, Tim Pino or Bill Parenti have a plan to clean this atrocious situation up.

Vincenza Biondi
Hillsborough, NJ