Detainees say they heard Cuban man being slammed to the ground before his death in ICE custody
In this June 25, 2018, file photo, an entrance to Fort Bliss is shown, in Fort Bliss, Texas. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images, FILE)
(EL PASO, Texas) — Several detainees at a Texas immigration detention facility claim in sworn court declarations that they heard a Cuban immigrant, whose death was later ruled a homicide, pleading for medication shortly before hearing what sounded like guards slamming him to the ground.
Geraldo Lunas Campos died in ICE custody on Jan. 3 at Camp East Montana, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
He is the third detainee to die at the detention center since it opened last year as a tent facility on the grounds of the Fort Bliss Army base outside El Paso.
In an autopsy report released last week, the El Paso County deputy medical examiner determined that Campos died from “asphyxia due to neck and torso compression.”
Attorneys for the Campos family filed an emergency petition last week to prevent alleged witnesses from being deported. The petition, which was granted by a federal judge, cites reports alleging that guards at the facility choked and asphyxiated Campos.
Some of those witnesses submitted sworn declarations this week alleging that they heard Campos ask guards for his asthma medication on the day he died.
“The guard then said, ‘Shut up or we’re going to make you faint,'” wrote Henry Bolano, a detainee, in English and Spanish. “The last thing I heard was Geraldo speak in a voice that sounded like he couldn’t breathe. He said, ‘Let go of me. You’re asphyxiating me.'”
“Then there was silence,” Bolano wrote.
Santo Jesus Flores, another detainee, said he heard a “struggle ensue” that sounded like “the slamming of a person’s body against the floor or the wall” after Campos asked for his medication.
“I heard Geraldo scream that he could not breathe,” Flores said. “I could hear them trying to revive him, but they could not keep him alive.”
A DHS spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News regarding the detainees’ sworn declarations.
According to DHS, Campos was detained in July during an immigration enforcement action in New York. He had prior convictions including sexual contact with a minor and criminal possession of a weapon, according to the DHS and court records.
In a statement released following his death, a DHS spokesperson said Campos was pronounced dead after “experiencing medical distress.”
“Lunas became disruptive while in line for medication and refused to return to his assigned dorm,” the statement said. “He was subsequently placed in segregation. While in segregation, staff observed him in distress and contacted on-site medical personnel for assistance.”
(CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas) — Jurors on the trial of former Uvalde, Texas, school police officer Adrian Gonzales listened to a firsthand account of the emergency response from a police sergeant who tried to enter Robb Elementary School with Gonzales.
Prosecutors allege Gonzales, who is charged with child endangerment, did not follow his training and endangered the 19 students who died and an additional 10 surviving students. He has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers argue he is being unfairly blamed for a broader law-enforcement failure that day. It took 77 minutes before law enforcement mounted a counterassault to end the rampage.
Former Uvalde Police Sgt. Daniel Coronado was called as a state witness, but he appeared to defend some of Gonzales’ actions during the May 24, 2022, mass shooting.
“He was yelling at them to be careful, because the shooter was on that side of the building from the information that we had, and I think he was concerned with officers approaching,” Coronado testified on Thursday about first seeing Gonzales. “He was trying to get around to see what was going on.”
Coronado said that he tried to enter Robb Elementary with three other officers — Gonzales, Uvalde Schools Police Chief Pete Arredondo and a third — once they realized the shooter had gone in the school. Jurors also saw body camera footage of their actions.
“As we are making our way through the hallway, it’s dark. There are no lights on. It’s extremely quiet, we don’t hear anything,” Coronado said, noting that the hallways smelled like gunpowder and the walls were “perforated” by bullets.
Coronado said they heard gunfire when they were in the hallway and saw another officer retreat after being hit on the back of his head.
“He yells out, ‘He’s in the classroom over here to my left,'” Coronado said.
Within seconds of the gunman firing from inside a classroom, Coronado said that Gonzales and Arredondo tried to use their radio to request support from SWAT.
“Would that be the opposite of confronting the shooter?” prosecutor Bill Turner asked.
“The opposite? No, I think we were trying to formulate a plan to confront the shooter, and that would be to call SWAT,” Coronado responded.
After they retreated from inside the school, Coronado said Gonzales was covering the east side of the building in case the gunman jumped out of the building.
On Wednesday, jurors heard testimony from Michael Witzgall, an instructor who taught Gonzales a class on active shooting response, SWAT tactics and hostage negotiations.
“We’ve got to stop the killing. There’s no other way I have to say that, folks. You can’t wait for backup,” Witzgall said, speaking to the jurors as if they were his students. “In my opinion, in the way I train people, you don’t have time to wait. You’ve got to make a move.”
During a lengthy cross examination, defense attorney Nico LaHood pressed Witzgall about whether a 40-hour training response fully prepared Gonzales for the real thing.
Dad Christopher Salinas also testified on Wednesday about the physical and mental impact the shooting took on his son, Samuel.
Samuel still has shrapnel embedded in his thigh and the wound has left him in constant pain, Salinas said.
Salinas testified that hearing popping sounds, arguments and slamming doors and seeing the color red triggers memories of the shooting for Samuel.
“Mr. Salinas, is the child that you picked up from the hospital on May 24 the same child that was taken to school that day?” District Attorney Christina Mitchell asked.
“No,” he answered.
Arredondo — the on-site commander on the day of the shooting — is also charged with multiple counts of endangerment and abandonment of a child and has pleaded not guilty. Arredondo’s case has been delayed indefinitely by an ongoing federal lawsuit filed after the U.S. Border Patrol refused repeated efforts by Uvalde prosecutors to interview Border Patrol agents who responded to the shooting, including two who were in the tactical unit responsible for killing the gunman at the school.
ABC News’ Juan Renteria contributed to this report.
A person holds Powerball lottery tickets they purchased. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The Powerball jackpot has soared to an estimated $875 million — the second biggest prize this year and one of the biggest in the game’s history.
The estimated prize grew after no one claimed the jackpot in Saturday night’s drawing, according to a notice on the Powerball website. The winning numbers were 13, 14, 26, 28, 44 with Powerball 7.
The next drawing is set for Monday, Dec. 8.
The jackpot is the game’s biggest prize this year after a massive $1.787 billion jackpot that was won in September, split between two tickets in Missouri and Texas.
Overall, it’s the seventh-biggest jackpot in the game’s history, according to Powerball.
The odds of winning are 1 in over 292 million, according to Powerball.
Winners will have a choice between a lump sum cash payment of $403.6 million or an annuitized prize, paid out in annual payments. Both amounts are before taxes.
To play, customers must purchase a $2 Powerball ticket and select five white numbers between 1 and 69 and one red number between 1 and 26 for the Powerball. The prize grows until it is won by a player with the corresponding five white numbers in any order with the matching red Powerball.
An estimated $36 billion for charitable causes has been generated from Powerball since the lottery began in 1992, according to Powerball.
Top 10 Powerball jackpots and their winning states:
(NEW YORK) — A doctor who admitted to distributing ketamine to Matthew Perry weeks before he died is set to be sentenced on Wednesday — the first among the five people convicted in connection with the “Friends” actor’s 2023 overdose death.
Salvador Plasencia pleaded guilty in July to four counts of distribution of ketamine. He is one of two doctors convicted of providing Perry with ketamine before the actor died in October 2023 at the age of 54. The actor was discovered unresponsive in a jacuzzi at his Los Angeles home, police said. An autopsy report revealed he died from the acute effects of ketamine.
Plasencia, an operator of an urgent care clinic in Malibu, had been set to go on trial in August in the case prior to reaching a plea agreement. He faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison for each count, prosecutors said.
His sentencing is scheduled for 11 a.m. Wednesday local time in Los Angeles federal court.
The government recommended a sentence of 36 months in prison, arguing in a filing ahead of the sentencing that Plasencia “sought to exploit Perry’s medical vulnerability for profit.”
“Indeed, the day defendant met Perry he made his profit motive known, telling a co-conspirator: ‘I wonder how much this moron will pay’ and ‘let’s find out,'” prosecutors stated.
Plasencia’s attorneys asked for a sentence of one day credit for time served and three years of supervised release in a filing ahead of sentencing, arguing that prison time is unnecessary given “the punishment Mr. Plasencia has already experienced, and will continue to experience for many years to come.”
“He has already lost his medical license, his clinic, and his career,” they wrote. “He has also been viciously attacked in the media and threatened by strangers to the point where his family has moved out of state for their safety.”
His attorneys stated that Plasencia recklessly treated Perry “without adequate knowledge of ketamine therapy and without a full understanding of his patient’s addiction,” and that it was “the biggest mistake of his life.”
They said he accepts the consequences of his actions and is working to find ways to help people without a medical license and one day hopes to start a nonprofit focused on food insecurity.
His attorneys also tried to differentiate Plasencia from the four other defendants in the case who have also all pleaded guilty — two dealers who provided the fatal dose of ketamine to Perry, the actor’s personal assistant who administered it and another doctor who ran a ketamine clinic.
Plasencia, his attorneys said, treated Perry for “a discrete thirteen-day period in the physician-patient context for depression.”
“Despite the serious treatment mistakes he made, Mr. Plasencia was not treating M.P. at the time of his death and he did not provide him with the ketamine which resulted in his overdose,” they continued.
According to Plasencia’s plea agreement, he distributed 20 vials of ketamine, ketamine lozenges and syringes to Perry and the actor’s live-in assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, between Sept. 30, 2023, and Oct. 12, 2023.
Plasencia “admits that his conduct fell below the proper standard of medical care and that transfers of ketamine vials to Defendant Iwamasa and Victim M.P. were not for a legitimate medical purpose,” his plea agreement stated.
Iwamasa, who admitted in court documents to administering the ketamine on the day that Perry died, pleaded guilty in August 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death, the DOJ said.
According to Iwamasa’s plea agreement, Perry asked Iwamasa to help him procure ketamine in September 2023 and provided his assistant with “money, or promised to reimburse him, and directed him to find sources from whom to acquire the drugs.”
One of Plasencia’s patients introduced him to Perry on Sept. 30, 2023, with the unidentified patient referring to the actor as a “‘high profile person’ who was seeking ketamine and was willing to pay ‘cash and lots of thousands’ for ketamine treatment,'” according to Plasencia’s plea agreement.
Plasencia contacted his mentor, Mark Chavez, who had previously operated a ketamine clinic, to discuss Perry’s request for ketamine and purchased vials of liquid ketamine, ketamine lozenges and other items from him, according to the agreement.
Chavez pleaded guilty in October 2024 to distributing ketamine to Perry.
In discussing how much to charge Perry, Plasencia said in text messages to Chavez, “I wonder how much this moron will pay” and “Lets [sic] find out,” the Department of Justice said.
Plasencia administered ketamine to Perry at the actor’s home on several occasions, and left vials and lozenges with Iwamasa to administer, according to the plea agreement. In one instance, he was paid $12,000 for such a visit, according to the agreement.
One such instance occurred outside of the home, when Plasencia administered ketamine to Perry in a parking lot near an aquarium in Long Beach, according to the plea agreement. Upon learning about that, Chavez “reprimanded” the other doctor “for ‘dosing people’ in cars, and in a public place where children are present,” Chavez’s plea agreement stated.
Plasencia returned to Perry’s home on Oct. 12, 2023, to administer ketamine, during which the actor’s blood pressure spiked, causing him to “freeze up,” according to Plasencia’s plea agreement.
“Notwithstanding Victim M.P.’s reaction, defendant left additional vials of ketamine with Defendant Iwamasa, knowing that Defendant Iwamasa would inject the ketamine into Victim M.P.,” the agreement stated.
After receiving 10 more vials of ketamine through a licensed pharmaceutical company using his DEA license, Plasencia texted Iwamasa on Oct. 27, 2023, according to the plea agreement: “I know you mentioned taking a break. I have been stocking up on the meanwhile. I am not sure when you guys plan to resume but in case its when im out of town this weekend I have left supplies with a nurse of mine …I can always let her know the plan.”
Perry died the following day after overdosing on ketamine, which Plasencia had not provided, according to the plea agreement.
Plasencia “sold vial after vial of ketamine to Mr. Perry, knowing that Perry’s personal assistant was administering the ketamine without proper oversight or medical training,” the government’s sentencing file stated. “Even after defendant saw Mr. Perry suffer an adverse reaction to a ketamine shot, he still offered to sell Perry more. While the ketamine that killed Mr. Perry on October 28 was not provided by defendant, defendant’s egregious breaches of trust and abandonment of his oath to ‘do no harm’ undoubtedly contributed to the harm that Mr. Perry suffered.”
Following their convictions, both Plasencia and Chavez gave up their medical licenses.
Chavez is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 17 and faces up to 10 years in prison.
Iwamasa is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 14, 2026, and faces up to 15 years in prison.
Two other defendants in the case — Erik Fleming and Jasveen Sangha — admitted to distributing the ketamine that killed Perry.
Prosecutors said Sangha worked with Fleming to distribute ketamine to Perry, and that in October 2023, they sold the actor 51 vials of ketamine, which were provided to Iwamasa.
Fleming pleaded guilty in August 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 7, 2026, and faces up to 25 years in prison.
Sangha, allegedly known as “The Ketamine Queen,” pleaded guilty in September to one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 25, 2026, and faces a maximum sentence of 65 years in prison.
