Colombian man held at federal lock-up in Miami dies of COVID-19 at local hospital
A 68-year-old Colombian man who was being held in a federal lock-up in Miami as he awaited trial on drug-trafficking charges has died of COVID-19, according to the Bureau of Prisons.
Ivan Edgardo Gonzalez-Ramirez died on Sunday after he was taken to a local hospital on June 22 because of a shortness of breath, BOP officials said. While at the hospital, he tested positive for the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus. He also had pre-existing medical conditions, officials said in a statement.
Gonzalez-Ramirez was one of nine inmates and two staff employees at the Federal Detention Cener in Miami who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic struck South Florida in March, BOP records show. Gonzalez-Ramirez, believed to be the first FDC-Miami inmate to die of COVID-19, had been in federal custody since early April when he was extradited from Colombia as the pandemic was escalating in the United States.
“His passing was tragic and unnecessary,” said Gonzalez-Ramirez’s defense attorney, Orlando do Campo.
His body is expected to be cremated and the ashes sent to his family in Colombia.
His death comes during a global pandemic that hit the United States hard starting in early March, prompting U.S. Attorney General William Barr to allow the Bureau of Prisons to consider releasing certain convicted felons because of the coronavirus threat.
Gonzalez-Ramirez was one of three defendants charged in December 2018 with conspiring to distribute cocaine knowing it would be illegally imported into the United States. The charge potentially carried up to life in prison.
As a result of his death, the U.S. Attorney’s Office plans to dismiss the conspiracy charge against Gonzalez-Ramirez, according to spokeswoman and federal prosecutor Marlene Rodriguez.
Civil rights activists criticized the BOP, calling Gonzalez-Ramirez’s COVID-19 death a “preventable tragedy.”
Vanita Gupta, formerly head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division and now president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, noted Gonzalez-Ramirez’s death on Twitter. “Read that again: Awaiting trial on a drug offense. Now he’s dead,” she wrote.
