The estates of two men who died from drug overdoses on Rikers Island will receive nearly $5.2 million in settlements from the city, according to lawyers who said the jail staff ignored the detainees for hours as they struggled.
Donny Ruben Ubiera, 33, suffered a fatal methadone overdose in a jail housing unit on Aug. 22, 2023, a critical medical episode that correction officers ignored, the lawyers said.
Nearly two years earlier, Jose Mejia Martinez suffered a similar fate, overdosing on methadone on June 10, 2021, at the jail’s George R. Vierno Center, where jail guards ignored him for three hours, according to court papers.
Ubiera’s estate received $2.4 million and Martinez’ estate received $2.7 million in settlement money.
“My son needed care, compassion, and protection,” Ubiera’s mother, Maricela Ubiera, said in a statement. “Instead, he was left in an environment where his mental health worsened, his cries for help went unanswered, and the system failed him at every turn.”
Martinez was being held at Rikers on a larceny charge that violated his parole, according to court documents. While at Rikers, Martinez ingested methadone he got from another incarcerated person in his housing unit and consumed it in the jail unit’s dayroom, according to the lawsuit filed by his estate.
It was a common area that should have been under the supervision of correction officers, the estate’s lawyers said.
“One correction officer allegedly walked right past Mr. Mejia Martinez, who was visibly incapacitated and slumped over a stairwell railing, without offering any assistance,” the lawyers said in a statement. “By the time medical staff arrived at his cell, it was too late — Mr. Mejia Martinez was already dead and showing signs of rigor mortis”
Ubiera made headlines in 2022, when cops say he attacked two people in separate incidents on a No. 7 train, stabbing a 62-year-old man in the face and stabbing a 55-year-old man in the neck.
He was charged with two counts of attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon.
But after an examination, he was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial and returned to Rikers after he was treated for schizophrenia at a psychiatric facility
Like Martinez, Ubiera obtained methadone from another person at the jail. He ingested it in front of officers after months of threatening to kill himself, the lawyer says.
Later, according to a lawsuit, he banged on his jail cell asking for help but no one responded.
“These settlements reflect the devastating consequences of a correctional system that repeatedly failed two vulnerable men in its custody,” said Julia Kuan, a partner at the Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel law firm, who is an attorney for both estates. “We hope these resolutions bring some measure of accountability and underscore the urgent need for meaningful reform at Rikers.”
A spokesman for the city’s Law Department declined to comment.