New York City Reaches Settlements Totaling Nearly $5.2 Million with Estates of Two Fatal Methadone Overdose Victims Detained on Rikers Island
by Chuck Sharman
New York City has reached nearly $5.2 million in settlements resolving two suits that accused staffers at the Rikers Island jail complex of ignoring detainees suffering fatal methadone overdoses. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an order on May 4, 2026, reflecting the City’s agreement to pay $2,499,999 to the mother of one victim, Donny Ruben Ubiera. Earlier, on April 22, 2026, the district court assigned the other case to a magistrate, whose jurisdiction the parties consented to assert over a separate City agreement paying $2,700,000 to the estate of the other victim, Jose Mejia Martinez.
Methadone is an opioid derivative designed to treat those suffering from addiction to other forms of opioid drugs, such as heroin. However, it must be administered in small doses; large doses can easily prove fatal. That’s how Mejia Martinez, 34, suffered a miserable death in the George R. Vierno Center (GRVC) on June 10, 2021, agonizing from methadone intoxication for nearly three hours alone in his cell without treatment before he finally succumbed.
Jailers knew that the detainee “was struggling with multiple mental health disorders and severe cocaine use disorder” when he was picked up for a parole violation 29 days earlier, according to the complaint later filed on his behalf. On the day that he died, surveillance video captured him going into another cell and drinking something from a plastic cup before stumbling out. “For over 40 minutes, he staggered up the unit’s staircase to the top tier, where he leaned on the railing in a stupor,” the complaint recalled. Yet guards walked blithely past him, offering no help, though a few stopped “occasionally to peer into his cell and observe him as he overdosed.” A fellow detainee found him unresponsive hours later and summoned guards, who initiated life-saving measures, but that proved too little too late.
In the agreement that was stipulated to the district court on March 30, 2026, the City promised to pay $2,697,500 to the Bronx County Public Administrator, who served as administrator of the dead detainee’s estate. Guard Jonathan Padilla agreed to pay an additional $2,000, and fellow guard Shakea Smith added a promise to pay $500 more. The district court refused to enter judgment, though, citing the parties for failing to comply with its Individual Rules of Practice in Civil Cases. They subsequently agreed to submit the case to the magistrate for disposition. Plaintiff is represented by attorneys Nicholas Bourland and Katherine R. Rosenfeld of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP in New York City. See: Est. of Mejia Martinez v. City of N.Y., USDC (S.D.N.Y.), Case No. 1:23-cv-04882.
Ubiera, 33, survived much longer at Rikers after his June 2022 arrest, primarily because he was found unfit to stand trial and remanded that October to Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center. After he was diagnosed with and treated for schizophrenia, he was released back to Rikers in March 2023 and spent six weeks in a mental health observation cell in the Anna M. Kross Center. In May 2023, he also ended up in the GRVC, where he was supposed to receive “clinical services and close supervision that people with mental illness need,” as the complaint filed on his behalf later recalled.
But struggling “to remain compliant with his prescribed psychotropic medications,” he “began taking illicit drugs … obtained through the prison black market.” Guards allegedly observed as he “tried to choke himself in his cell several times with his sheet or towel,” laconically advising him “to unwrap the sheet from around his neck.” On August 21 he also obtained methadone from an unclear source; the next morning he was found unresponsive in his cell. Guards attempted life-saving measures. But it took over 10 minutes to locate Narcan, which is used to treat opioid overdoses. By that time, Ubiera was dead.
With the aid of Rosenfeld and fellow Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel attorneys Julia P. Kuan and Sonya Levitova, Ubiera’s mother, Maricela Ubiera, filed suit in the district court in November 2024 under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, accusing jailers of deliberate indifference to her son’s serious medical need, in violation of his Fourteenth Amendment rights. The parties then proceeded to reach their settlement agreement. Under its terms, the City agreed to pay the Plaintiff $2,498,899, and three guards agreed to add another $1,000 in total—$500 from Eaugene Russell, $350 from Sincere Crowell and $250 from Trevor Sam. See: Ubiera v. City of N.Y., USDC (S.D.N.Y.), Case No. 1:23-cv-04882.
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Related legal case
Ubiera v. City of N.Y.
| Year | 2026 |
|---|---|
| Cite | USDC (S.D.N.Y.), Case No. 1:23-cv-04882 |
| Level | District Court |