By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, February 28, 1992
The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | NEWS | B01
A state deputy public advocate on Thursday criticized procedures at the Bergen County Jail after a Passaic man accused of murder committed suicide in his cell.
Robert Irving, 20, accused of killing Ann Roma Li Gregni of Lodi last week, should have been monitored better, said Assistant Deputy Public Advocate Audrey Bomse. She is overseeing a 1988 lawsuit challenging overcrowded conditions at the jail.
Irving was arrested Tuesday and was found in his cell 7:05 a.m. Wednesday by a corrections officer who came to serve him breakfast. He choked himself with his shoelaces, and his socks were stuffed in his mouth, Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said.
“Here you have a young person, he’s hit with a serious charge, high bail, had not had contact with an attorney, probably distraught,” Bomse said. “It would seem to me there should be better monitoring within the first few days of admission to the jail.
“It also raises the question whether there is adequate training of officers, adequate intake procedure, and suicide prevention.”
Fahy had said that Irving appeared calm at the time of his arrest.
Irving’s mother, Millie, 39, also said Thursday that her son should have been watched.
“I feel like if he was arrested for murder he should have been watched,” she said. “A 20-year-old boy accused of murder, and he wasn’t watched? I don’t care, even if he was in his right mind.”
Irving said her son denied he was involved in the killing after he was questioned by authorities who visited their home.
“I asked him, `Did you do it? He said, `No, Mama. I won’t do something like that,” she said.
Fahy said the number of inmate suicides three in the jail since May, with a fourth by an inmate at Bergen Pines County Hospital a month earlier seems higher than in other jails around the state and could indicate a serious problem. He said he would investigate.
Bomse, saying “the level of security is definitely a factor in deciding whether the conditions are constitutional,” added that the suicides will be offered as proof that overcrowding and inadequate staffing inhibit the jail administration’s ability to protect the inmates from themselves as well as from other inmates and security officers.
But Bergen County Undersheriff Mary Ellen Bolton reiterated Thursday her earlier statement that Irving had physical and psychological screening “and did not demonstrate any signs or symptoms” of suicide.
Irving was charged in the strangling death of Li Gregni in her home at Avenue C on Feb. 20.
Her body was found wrapped in a blanket in a basement closet. Fahy said Irving was the boyfriend of Li Gregni’s granddaughter and that she disapproved of the relationship.
Hearings in the public advocate’s suit, filed in 1988 to relieve overcrowding and the problems it creates, are under way before a special master who will make a recommendation to a federal judge.
ID: 17370050 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)
Leave a Reply