Local News in Brief : Jail Suicide Case Settled

The Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to pay $200,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the mother of a 23-year-old El Monte man who committed suicide in the Los Angeles County Jail Feb. 20, three days after deputies saved him from another attempt to hang himself.

The board agreed to the settlement on the advice of the Sheriff’s Department and county counsel, who acknowledged in a report to the board that there was evidence that Frank Ponce “was a person with a serious psychiatric or medical need.”

The attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Ponce’s mother, Delores Centano, said Ponce should have been placed in a suicide watch cell where prisoners are monitored every 15 minutes. Critics have complained for years that jail overcrowding has contributed to depriving troubled inmates of adequate psychiatric care.