CHICAGO _ A second inmate at Cook County Jail has died after testing positive for the coronavirus, on the same day as a federal judge rejected an emergency request to release medically vulnerable detainees.
Leslie Pieroni, 51, a convicted sex offender, had been hospitalized since April 3 and died on Thursday. The sheriff's office said the official cause of death was pending an autopsy, but "preliminary reports indicate he died as the result of complications due to the virus."
On Sunday, another inmate at the jail died after testing postive. Jeffery Pendleton, 59, had been hospitalized since March 30. Pendleton had been booked into the jail in July of 2018 on charges including armed habitual criminal and armed violence.
Pieroni was jailed on Dec. 23, 2018 after he was accused of sexually assaulting a boy. He was charged with predatory criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse. A judge denied bail. In 2006, he was sentenced to eight years in prison for sexually assaulting two children.
As of Thursday evening, 276 detainees at the jail have tested positive for COVID-19. Of those, 219 were being treated and monitored at Cermak Health Services for mild to moderate symptoms, and 36 others were moved to a recovery facility, the sheriff's office said. "Pieroni was one of 21 who were being treated at local hospitals."
The second death comes as a federal judge on Thursday declined to release inmates who might be vulnerable to the coronavirus. However, the judge granted a temporary restraining order forcing Sheriff Tom Dart to comply with strict sanitation and testing measures.
A lawsuit filed last week alleged Dart has failed to stop a "rapidly unfolding public health disaster" at the sprawling jail complex. The jail now ranks at or near the top of lists of single locations for COVID-19 infections in the country.
In a 37-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly acknowledged the potential "grave risks" to health at the jail. But Kennelly said those filing the lawsuit had failed to show that they'd exhausted their options in state court _ namely seeking expedited bond review under rules established by Cook County Chief Criminal Judge Leroy Martin Jr. last month amid the widening pandemic.
In he meantime, the judge ordered the sheriff to swiftly establish a policy "requiring prompt coronavirus testing of detainees who exhibit symptoms" as well as those exposed to others who have tested positive.
Under Kennelly's order, face masks should be provided to any detainee in quarantine. And by Friday, the judge said, the sheriff's office must begin "providing soap and/or hand sanitizer to all detainees in quantities sufficient to permit them to frequently clean their hands."
In announcing the second death at the jail, the sheriff's office insisted that "everything sheriff's officers and county medical professionals have done since before the virus started spreading in the Chicago area was in an effort to prevent the loss of life to this deadly virus. We will continue to work round-the-clock to aggressively combat the spread of COVID-19."
