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PINELLAS COUNTY---The family of Richard J. Trovanos who allegedly hanged himself while incarcerated in the Pinellas County Jail, wants some answers into how that could have happened and have hired an attorney.
Trovanos of Pinellas Park, had been arrested Nov. 9 on charges of felony battery assault and tampering with a witness in a domestic violence case.
He had been booked into the jail at 12:27 a.m. Sheriff's officials say that because he was uncooperative during the booking process, he had been placed in solitary, issued only a jail uniform and mattress and supposedly checked every 15 minutes. About 5:14 p.m., he was found unconscious in his cell by a detention deputy. A sheriff's report says that medical staff responded and he was pronounced dead at 5:45 p.m.
Detectives claim a detention deputy had last checked Trovanos at 5 p.m. and when he returned at 5:14 p.m. the inmate was in a seated position hanging from a makeshift noose fashioned out of a part of his issued uniform. The detention deputy freed the inmate and notified medical staff members who responded immediately.
Trovanos' family, who has hired Largo attorney John Trevena, wants to know how he could have committed suicide if he was supposedly under such close observation.
They also want to know if the medical staff at the jail where Michael Schiavo is a supervisor had prescribed and was administering to Trovanos any of the psychiatric medications that he had been taking.
The Pinellas County Sheriff's Department is reportedly still investigating the incident.
Trovanos' ex-wife, Roberta Troyanos of Staten Island, said she had called the jail the day after he got arrested and told jail officials that he needed his "meds". She says that the sheriff's employee she spoke with told her that it wasn't their problem and that "we don't care". She says her ex-husband had a long history of schizophrenia, depression and suicide attempts and at the time of his arrest, was residing at the Boley Center for Behavioral Healthcare in Pinellas Park, an outpatient mental health facility.
Nurses on the jail staff are required to evaluate every inmate on booking and decide if prescriptions should be issued.
A spokesman for the sheriff's office said that Trovanos wasn't under observation on a suicide watch but rather for uncooperative behavior and instead of being issued the "paper dress" for inmates under suicide watch, he had been issued a standard jail uniform. http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/111006JailDeaths.html
11-18-06
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