Sacramento County in last year paid $2.4M to families of men who died in custody
Sacramento County in 2025 and so far in 2026 paid $2.45 million in settlements to the family members of four men who died while incarcerated at the Sacramento County Main Jail downtown.
The Sacramento Bee obtained the settlement agreements through a California Public Records Act request for all lawsuit settlement agreements the county signed in 2025 and for January. Four of those settlements involved deaths of inmates.
The largest of the four settlements totaled $1.35 million, paid to the family and child of Norman Fisher, who died of sepsis in 2023. The other three men died of drug overdoses, either from ingesting drugs inside the jail or from experiencing fatal withdrawals. The county was self-insured, meaning it paid the settlements directly out of its own budget using taxpayer funds.
The county declined to comment on the settlements, said Kim Nava, a county spokesperson. Asked for comment, a Sheriff’s Office spokesperson sent The Bee a link to file a request for documents.
The settlements included:
Norman Fisher, 47
In June, the county signed an agreement to pay a $1.35 million settlement to the family and child of Fisher, who died May 25, 2023, after being transferred to a hospital from the jail.
The death certificate listed Fisher’s cause of death as septic shock, a bacterial infection, acute kidney failure and pneumonia.
An independent medical report, prompted by a federal settlement known as the Mays Consent Decree in a 2019 class action lawsuit, said jail staff should have sent Fisher to the hospital weeks sooner.
“That case highlighted how inept and incompetent the medical and custodial staff are at dealing with anyone who has a serious medical condition,” said Mark Merin, who represented Fisher’s family and the families in the other three settlements. “They treated Fisher, who was on death’s door with sepsis, like he had the flu and told him, when he and his cellmate kept asking for help, to ‘just let it run its course.’ That was death. Simple administration of antibiotics would have saved him.”
The Sheriff’s Office did not issue a news release or post on social media to inform the public of Fisher’s death.
Michael John Prince, 43
In August, the county signed a $650,000 settlement agreement with the family of Michael John Prince, who died of an overdose in the jail on July 8, 2023.
Following Prince’s death, jail nurses told investigators that although he was housed in a detox cell, understaffing meant they had not conducted withdrawal monitoring for six days, according to a court-ordered report prepared under the consent decree.
Prince’s cause of death was fentanyl, with cardiovascular disease, a history of drug use, diabetes, chronic kidney disease and hyperglycemia listed as significant contributing conditions, according to the coroner’s report.
“Prince’s death has devastated a large Roma family which depended on his entrepreneurial skills to sustain them,” said Merin, his family’s attorney. “He was a jovial patriarch to a very traditional family. ... Until the jail starts searching the deputies and staff as they enter the facility, and teaches the folks who operate the scanner how to spot the drugs clearly visible on the screen, they will never keep the people inside safe.”
In fall 2023, the Sheriff’s Office investigated a spate of overdose inmate deaths, then arrested several staffers tied to Avid Healthcare Services, a health care contractor, for smuggling drugs into the jail in exchange for money. Then-Sheriff Jim Cooper called on the Board of Supervisors to move the medical care of inmates under the Sheriff’s Office, away from the county Department of Health. All four workers tied to the smuggling eventually pleaded guilty to related charges, according to court records.
Jail medical staff and contracted medical employees were not moved under the Sheriff’s Office. However, county officials made several changes after fall 2023, said Elizabeth Zelidon, a county spokesperson. Those included increased withdrawal monitoring, the hiring of a new county medical director, Dr. Thomas Bzoskie, restructuring nursing director positions, and adding naloxone administration to the standard pill-call process.
Delion Johnson, 35
On Jan. 10, the county signed a $400,000 settlement agreement with the family and children of Delion Johnson.
Johnson died of an overdose in the jail’s booking area on April 5, 2023, after video surveillance showed him ingesting an unknown substance later identified as fentanyl through toxicology testing, according to the coroner’s report.
An online obituary page for Johnson included dozens of messages from friends and family members sharing memories.
“As you grew up you always had that big smile and a hug for me!” Johnson’s aunt Helga Childers wrote. “You always made every one around you laugh. Each time I came into town to visit, you made me feel love, when you would come up to me and give me that big smile and big hug!”
Cody Catanzarite, 37
In May, the county signed a $50,000 settlement agreement with the family and daughter of Catanzarite, an unhoused man who died at a hospital of an overdose within hours of arriving at the jail in July 2023.
Catanzarite was transported to Mercy San Juan Medical Center for medical clearance before jail booking, the lawsuit alleged. He told a doctor he had ingested two grams of heroin before his arrest and had also used methamphetamine earlier that day. The hospital cleared him for incarceration with a Narcan prescription and instructions to return to the emergency room if symptoms worsened, the lawsuit alleged.
A consent decree report said Catanzarite should have been monitored more frequently for overdose risk.
The coroner listed Catanzarite’s cause of death as acute fentanyl and methamphetamine intoxication.
No fentanyl testing was available at the jail at the time of Fisher’s death, according to a 2023 county staff report presented to the Board of Supervisors. Fentanyl testing was later added, Nava said.
A spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether the District Attorney’s Office would investigate potential criminal liability for deputies in connection with any of the four deaths.
This story was originally published February 10, 2026 at 7:00 AM.
