Two Denver deputies suspended over 2020 inmate escape

Two Denver jail deputies will lose pay after a man who was incarcerated escaped by tricking deputies into believing he was his cellmate.

Deputy Zabair Cheema will serve a two-day suspension for failing to verify the man’s identity before releasing him from the downtown jail. Deputy Phillip Weingart, a field training officer, will also lose two days of pay for failing to properly supervise the deputies in the release unit, some of whom were still in training.

Jerrol Jones has not been found since his escape on July 26, 2020, when he tricked the deputies by pretending to be his cellmate who was scheduled to be released on bond. Jones was incarcerated for violating probation on a weapons charge and was also wanted by the U.S. Marshals Service at the time of his escape.

“While Deputy Cheema has made improvements in his practices since this incident, these improvements do not minimize the very real impacts of his misconduct,” Cheema’s July 30 disciplinary letter states. “Put succinctly, due to Deputy Cheema’s misconduct, (Jones) was able to escape from confinement and presently remains at large.”

Cheema was working at the release station and asked Jones a series of questions to verify his identity, like his birthday and social security number. Jones answered the questions correctly with his cellmate’s information, according to the deputies’ disciplinary letters.

It’s unclear how Jones knew the answers to the questions, but investigators think it’s possible his cellmate conspired with him, the letter states.

But Cheema failed to ask Jones to remove his face mask to verify his identity and released him even though the fingerprint identification machine was not working the day Jones escaped, the letter states.

Cheema told internal affairs investigators that not asking Jones to remove his mask was a “huge error.” But Cheema said the deputies were never trained how to use the fingerprint machine and that it often malfunctioned.

A second deputy working the release desk was not trained on releases but was with that team because “we needed a body in the unit,” Cheema said. The department has been understaffed for years.

The second deputy failed to stop the escape and Weingart — the training officer overseeing her — was in a different part of the jail at the time of Jones’ release.

Jail staff realized they released the wrong person about four hours after Jones’ 1 p.m. escape.

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