MIAMI - Two jail nurses surrendered Wednesday on third-degree murder and manslaughter indictments issued in the death in June of a 17-year-old inmate from a burst appendix suffered in a state-run juvenile jail.
Gaile Tucker Loperfido and Dianne Marie Demeritte allegedly failed to provide "essential" care to Omar Paisley and falsified records to indicate they had visited his cell and examined him when they didn't, according to a grand jury report that said Paisley spent his last three days "in agony lying on a concrete bed." By the time the decision was made to take him to a hospital to see a doctor, it was too late; he died slumped on a chair outside his cell.
Loperfido's and Demeritte's attorneys said they would plead innocent. Bail was set at $17,500.
The women face up to nine years in prison if convicted.
The nurses worked for Miami Children's Hospital under a contract with the 226-bed Miami-Dade Regional Juvenile Detention Center, operated by the state Department of Juvenile Justice.
Paisley had written a sick form about stomach pain less than 24 hours after arriving at the jail.
