A 46-year-old inmate of the federal prison complex in Lompoc died Tuesday, officials said, marking the seventh inmate death at the facility in nine months. Five of the deaths were linked to the massive COVID-19 outbreak there last spring. The sixth remains under investigation, and federal officials have offered few details on the most recent case.
Fermin Maldonado-Lopez was found unresponsive by staff at around 6:45 a.m., the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) said in a press release. Attempts to revive him failed, and emergency responders declared him dead at the scene. Maldonado-Lopez was serving a 63-month sentence for illegally reentering the United States after he’d previously been deported. He’d been in custody since August 13, 2018.
The section of the prison where Maldonado-Lopez was housed is currently in the throes a second COVID-19 outbreak, with 36 active cases among inmates and six among staff.