A 50-year-old man who had been in jail since mid-August was the Penobscot County Jail inmate who died over the weekend.
The Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday said James Pearsall was found unresponsive in his cell early Sunday morning. Pearsall had been in jail since Aug. 19 and was facing an aggravated drug trafficking charge.
Pearsall was alone in his cell, which was locked, at the time of his death. The man was found by jail staff during a routine population check, according to the sheriff’s office.
The sheriff’s office did not release a cause of death but said Pearsall’s death did not appear suspicious.
Pearsall was indicted in June on charges of aggravated drug trafficking of a Class A crime after he was found with 270 or more individual bags of fentanyl, according to the June 29 indictment. He was arrested by police in Bangor, but the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency was investigating his case, according to Bangor police Sgt. Jason McAmbley.
Initially, Pearsall’s bail was set at $40,000, but it was later lowered to $10,000, according to court records. Court records show Pearsall with addresses in Orono and Bangor, though the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office said Pearsall was from Old Town.
Pearsall is the second person this year to die while in the custody of the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office, and the 16th person to die while incarcerated or in police custody this year.
The latter number puts the state on track to set a record this year for the number of people to have died while in a state prison or county jail or police custody, according to a group that recently began tracking in-custody deaths.
In March, Jeremy Lau, 46, of Patten died while he was in the custody of the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office and Maine State Police. Similarly, no cause or manner of death has been released for Lau’s death, although the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has determined both.
Lau was arrested by officers from the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office and Maine State Police, who were responding to a 911 call for help at a Patten home on March 1. Lau died shortly after he was arrested.
At the time, Lau was also wanted for missing a court date in Millinocket in February that stemmed from a January encounter with the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office, in which he was accused of assaulting a sheriff’s deputy and kicking the windshield of the deputy’s cruiser, causing more than $1,000 in damage.
During that encounter on Jan. 7, Lau was arrested on an outstanding warrant and also charged with refusing to submit to arrest, criminal mischief and violating conditions of release. The Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office said he would also be charged with assaulting an officer, but that charge was never filed.
Lau was later released from bail on those charges, but didn’t show up for his February court date in Millinocket, resulting in another charge of failure to appear, Assistant District Attorney Chris Almy told the Bangor Daily News in March.
A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office said the investigation into Lau’s death remains active and that the office could not comment further.
Pearsall’s death required that the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office notify the Department of Corrections, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and the Bangor Police Department, according to Nicole Sacre, a spokesperson for the attorney general’s office.
Each of those agencies will complete an investigation into Pearsall’s death and submit findings to the attorney general for review, she said.
Bangor police declined to comment on its role in the investigation into Pearsall’s death. The Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office also declined to further elaborate on Pearsall’s death.
Additionally, the sheriff’s office did not respond to a Bangor Daily News inquiry about the number of people who have died in its custody during the past year.
