The families of four men who recently died over a six-week period after being booked into the Broward County jail lent their support Thursday to calls for a Justice Department investigation of the jail system.
Standing with the Broward public defender and president of the local NAACP branch, the family members asked Sheriff Gregory Tony to provide answers and accountability for the deaths occurring on his watch.
One inmate was allegedly murdered by a fellow inmate, another died of a reported suicide, and while the causes of the other two deaths are undetermined, drugs or drug withdrawal is suspected in both.
“I want to know what happened to my son. I’m hurt,” Jeff Geffrard said through his tears, speaking of his son Jannard, beaten to death by another Main Jail inmate on December 16. “I love my son. I miss my son.”
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Corine Modeste, whose brother Alvin was found hanging in his North Broward Bureau cell on Christmas Eve, questions the scant information she said the jail’s provided. “For them to tell me that he comitted suicide, it’s not believable at all. I need to see for myself.”
Robert Moberg lost his son, Corbin, on New Year’s Day to what is suspected to be a drug overdose while housed in the system’s North Broward Bureau, which is equipped with mental health treatment.
“Corbin was a good kid. Corbin just made a bad choice,” he said Thursday’s. “I was hoping Corbin would be safe where he was at and that didn’t work out like that.”
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The loss cuts deep, he said.
“Some nights I wake up and I can’t get back to sleep. I just lay there thinking about what could have been and how his life could’ve been in the future. And that’s not going to happen because somewhere somebody failed.”
Anthony Kirk had hoped calling police on his nephew, Joseph, during a domestic dispute in mid-January would get him the help he needed.
“And I hate to say it, but I had a part of putting Joey in jail and I have a little guilt because I thought he would be safe. Obviously not,” he said.
Broward Pubic Defender Gordon Weekes, who hosted the news conference with the families, said, “You have four families before you, but there a number of other families that have also had to endure significant loss, significant abuse or significant neglect within that facility. That has to come to an end.”
“When we have folks introduced into the system and the system then causes them additional trauma, where folks are dying when they’re supposed to be protected, cared for, and placed in a level of security, this system is failing,” said Weekes.
Marsha Ellison, president of the NAACP Broward branch, noted the national president has asked the US Department of Justice to investigate, writing in a letter it is “horrified by the continued injustice that Broward County families have been forced to endure.”
“For those who might say deaths happen in custody in jails all over the country all the time, not in these numbers,” Ellison said. “We don’t want to hear we investigated ourselves and found we’ve done no wrong.”
Sheriff Gregory Tony has declined repeated requests this week for interviews about the conditions in his jails. His office did send an email noting it was accredited by a state commission. That commission tells NBC6 it has never denied a jail system its reaccreditation.
“Whatever the truth is, wherever the facts lie, that’s what we want to know,” said Ellison. “We’re gonna let the chips fall where they may.”
Asked if she felt the sheriff was shirking his duties, Ellison said, “We only know what we see. If they say they're trying to do something, people are still dying. So obviously, if they’re trying — and I’m not saying they’re not — it has not worked. And so it’s time to do something different.”
By the pubic defender’s count, 21 inmates have died since 2019 (he corrected a previous statement that counted 21 deaths since 2021). Some if not most of those were classified as natural deaths and some died after being moved to a hospital, not in the jail.
But over just the last month and a half, the following incidents have been reported:
Joseph Kirk died Jan 22 in the detoxification unit of the main jail, six days after he was booked on a resisting police charge after he fled from a domestic violence scene.
Another inmate, Hubert Blount, attempted suicide on January 4 in the mental health unit of the North Broward Bureau jail.
On New Year’s Day, inmate Corbin Moberg died of a possible drug overdose two and a half years into his incarceration.
On December 26, inmate Alvin Modeste died two days after he was found hanging in his cell in the mental Heath unit at the North Broward Bureau.
On December 16, Jannard Geffrard was beaten to death in the main jail, allegedly by another inmate.
