Grand jury indicts California school staffers in 2018 death of 13-year-old autistic boy
A criminal grand jury has indicted an El Dorado County private school and three of its staffers in the death of Max Benson, a 13-year-old student with autism who suffered fatal brain damage after being held face-down in a prone restraint for nearly two hours.
A recently convened special criminal grand jury indicted Guiding Hands, a now-closed special needs school in El Dorado Hills, along with former site administrator Cindy Keller, principal Starrane Meyers and teacher Kimberly Wohlwend.
Each was indicted on one charge of involuntary manslaughter in the boy’s November 2018 death, El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Savannah Broddrick confirmed Wednesday. Prosecutors filed the indictment to El Dorado County Superior Court on July 15.
The indictments, which remain sealed, come in conjunction with the manslaughter charges county prosecutors filed against the defendants in November 2019.
The three educators each entered a not guilty plea at an initial arraignment that month, and again pleaded not guilty Tuesday in an arraignment for the indictments.
Wohlwend is accused of holding Max in the restraint position for more than an hour and 45 minutes, according to a separate civil lawsuit filed by the boy’s mother. Other staffers allegedly assisted in holding down his legs and in performing a “takedown maneuver” on the teen.
Attorneys for the school in statements a few months after Max’s death said de-escalation techniques were sometimes necessary to ensure the safety and security of students, staff and teachers.
Max had been restrained by school staff for allegedly spitting at a classmate. According to court documents, he left the school in an ambulance — unconscious — after vomiting and urinating on himself while being held face-down on the floor.
The civil suit filed by the family alleged that staff members took no steps to ensure Max was released from a hold, nor did they check on his medical condition. He lost consciousness 25 minutes before paramedics arrived at the school, the suit said.
The California Department of Education in 2018 wrote that school staff used “an amount of force which is not reasonable and necessary under the circumstances” while holding him down for 105 minutes.
The new indictments mark the first significant development in the court proceedings since January 2021, when county officials handed over ambulance records to Judge Mark Ralphs.
An attorney for the three defendants told Ralphs in an August 2020 hearing that they were discussing a plea deal at that time with District Attorney Vern Pierson’s office, according to the Mountain Democrat. The Placerville newspaper reported that Lisette Suder, the assistant district attorney who continues to prosecute the case, during a Zoom court appearance at that time confirmed prosecutors would be amenable to “leaving the offer open” for several more weeks.
No plea deal materialized.
Keller, Meyers and Wohlwend were arraigned in the indictment are now due back in court Sept. 2 for a trial-setting conference, Broddrick said.
Special criminal grand juries, which are separate from the county’s civil grand jury, convene about once a year in El Dorado County, Broddrick said. A criminal grand jury in September 2020 returned indictments against Juan Carlos Vasquez Orozco, who was convicted this year of murdering Deputy Brian Ishmael, along with two of Vasquez’s co-defendants who were convicted on accessory charges.
Guiding Hands closed after the deadly incident and was replaced in 2019 by a different special education school, Point Quest Education.
This story was originally published July 21, 2022 at 7:42 AM.
