After second trial, jury convicts San Diego County deputy who seriously injured restrained inmate

Following a mistrial last month after a federal jury was unable to agree on a verdict, a second jury on Friday convicted a San Diego County sheriff’s deputy of violating a detainee’s civil rights by forcefully shoving the heavily restrained man headfirst into a wall, resulting in a head wound and serious spinal injury to the victim.

The jury deliberated just two hours Friday afternoon before finding Jeremiah Manuyag Flores, 45, guilty on charges of deprivation of rights under the color of law and falsifying a record in a federal investigation.

After Flores’ first trial last month, the jury deliberated for parts of three days before announcing they were deadlocked. U.S. District Judge Linda Lopez subsequently declared a mistrial. Prosecutors retried Flores beginning Monday in San Diego federal court.

“Today’s verdict makes one thing unmistakably clear: the badge does not excuse brutality,” San Diego-area U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said in a statement. “When an officer abuses power and inflicts harm on someone in their custody, it is a crime — and this office will hold them accountable.”

Attorneys representing Flores, a La Jolla resident, said that regardless of the outcome, they valued the opportunity to challenge the government’s allegations in court.

“While we respectfully disagree with the verdict, we respect the jury’s decision and the important role juries play in our criminal justice system,” the defense attorneys said. “This case involved complex legal issues in an area of law that continues to develop, and it arose in the context of challenging and often difficult decisions faced by law enforcement officers in the course of their duties.”

The Sheriff’s Office placed Flores on administrative leave shortly after the incident as the office launched an investigation. That probe concluded that his actions were likely criminal and the office forwarded the case to prosecutors. Flores is currently suspended without pay, the Sheriff’s Office said Friday.

“As the Sheriff, I will continue working to ensure a culture does not exist where deputies believe this behavior is tolerated,” Sheriff Kelly Martinez said in a statement. Her office said she applauded the jury’s verdict and that it would send a message to all law enforcement officers that excessive force and lying will not be tolerated.

“I hold our value of compassion as core to who we are,” Martinez said. “There is no excuse for any deputy to use excessive force. Any Sheriff’s employee who violates the law or policy will be held accountable.”

According to prosecutors, the crime occurred Aug. 29, 2024, in the bowels of the downtown San Diego Central Courthouse, where Flores had been working for about 18 months. He was assigned to escort restrained inmates from a basement detention area to holding cells on different floors of the building.

Prosecutors said that after one hearing, Flores became increasingly agitated with a slow-moving inmate. In part because of the man’s mental health issues, he was heavily restrained with his ankles chained together, his wrists folded across his front and chained to his waist, and a chain connecting the wrist restraints and ankle restraints.

Prosecutors alleged that while mocking and bickering with the 57-year-old detainee, Flores forcefully shoved him into a holding cell, where the man stumbled forward, slammed headfirst into a wall, and then fell and struck his head against a bench. Prosecutors said he ultimately ended up slumped on the floor, where he remained for two hours without moving. He was later taken to a hospital, where doctors determined he had a spinal fracture that eventually required surgery and months of hospitalization.

“He was defenseless,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth Askins told the jury Friday morning during closing arguments, saying the victim was at increased risk of injury because he “couldn’t use his hands to stop himself.”

Askins showed the jury several different video angles of the incident. In a video from Flores’ body-worn camera, he can be heard immediately addressing two nearby colleagues, saying, “What? Nothing happened.”

In other footage, Flores can be seen walking away with an apparent grin on his face.

“He walked away smiling proudly,” Askins told the jury. “He was grinning from ear to ear, the self-satisfaction all over his face.”

But Askins told the jurors that while Flores was “proud of himself for what he’d done, he also tried to hide it” by filing a false report about the incident. In the report, Flores wrote that he had “nudged (the detainee) lightly” into the cell and that “no force was used.”

Defense attorney Miguel Peñalosa told the jury during the first trial that Flores used what he believed at the time was a reasonable amount of force. The defense attorney told the jurors they must decide the case on what Flores perceived in the moment without the benefit of hindsight, and that the main question of law was not whether Flores shoved the inmate too aggressively, but whether he had “specific intent” to violate his constitutional rights.