Officials: Jail officer lied about inmate checks

A corrections officer was arrested Saturday after he lied about checking on inmates in the Travis County Correctional Complex at Del Valle, telling investigators he just "didn't care" about doing his regular checks, his affidavit says.

Carlos Luna, 21, has been charged with tampering with a government record, a Class A misdemeanor, which is punishable by up to a year in the county jail and a fine of up to $4,000.

Travis County sheriff's officials said a supervisor was reviewing surveillance camera footage in Building 12 of the jail complex and noticed that Luna did not appear to be doing regular checks on inmates, as required by state law, at the times he had indicated in a logbook.

The sheriff's office opened both Internal Affairs and criminal investigations, and Luna was immediately reassigned to a position that did not require inmate supervision, officials said.

Detectives found that Luna had logged 49 visual checks during a six-day period in June, but video evidence showed he didn't perform 34 of them. According to the sheriff's office, Luna told detectives he had been falsifying logs for as long as two months.

On Wednesday, a detective "asked Luna if there was something preventing him from completing his (checks), and Luna stated he was going through some personal issues and just 'didn't care,'" the affidavit says.

Luna was not immediately arrested because the internal and criminal investigations took time to conduct, sheriff's spokeswoman Kristen Dark said.

Luna has worked for the sheriff's office since July 2017. His case is currently under review for administrative or disciplinary action, authorities said. He was booked into the Travis County Jail on Saturday afternoon and posted bond that day.

Supervisors at the Travis County Correctional Complex regularly review surveillance footage to ensure employees are following protocol, Dark said.

"It’s their obligation to look at the footage — whether it’s dash cam footage or footage in the jail — to determine if the people they supervise are doing their jobs properly," Dark said.

A recent American-Statesman investigation revealed some instances of questionable judgment by jail personnel in the days or moments that led up to some inmates' deaths. In one incident, an officer told a nurse she had given the wrong medication to an inmate, to which the nurse responded "Am I supposed to f---ing care?" according to an internal memo. The nurse, Susan Conway, denied making the comment.

The Statesman's investigation also found a corrections officer, G.W. Williams, was suspended for a day earlier this year and received additional training after an inmate died on his watch. His disciplinary records show he did not complete one of his required checks on the inmate.

Dark said she was unsure whether any inmates were hurt or experienced medical emergencies on Luna's watch. She also said she didn't know whether Luna was on duty when inmate Steve Guajardo, 40, died in February or when five other inmates died during 2018. No inmate deaths were reported during the time span in which investigators said Luna had lied about the checks.

Dark said the camera footage review is routine and that neither the investigation into Luna's actions nor his arrest occurred in response to the Statesman's review.

Four of the five deaths last year happened in the jail's Health Services Building. Building 12 houses part of the jail's general population and is separate from the health building.