Lawsuit claims California man, 38, endured agonizing AIDS death in jail after staff refused to give him his HIV medication when he was held in custody for missing a court date

• Nicholas Overfield, 38  died of AIDS in jail after staff failed to give him his HIV medication, a lawsuit alleges
• Overfield died of of a viral infection, varicella zoster virus encephalitis, after his HIV was not kept in check with his needed medication  
• Now his heartbroken mother is suing the prison and its healthcare contractor over her son’s death 

A California man died of AIDS in jail after staff failed to give him his HIV medication, a lawsuit alleges.

Nicholas Overfield died in June 2022 after being detained in the El Dorado County Jail without access to his life-saving medication. 

The 38-year-old, who was HIV positive, was arrested in February 2022 after failing to appear for a court date and jailed. 

Upon arrival at the federal facility near Lake Tahoe and the Nevada border Overfield and his mother gave police officers his medication and informed them of his HIV-positive status so that he could continue to be treated in jail.

However, medical records show Overfield  never received the drugs, a lawsuit filed by his mother Lesley Overfield states. 

By April 2023, a month into his incarceration, Overfield was in a wheelchair, unable even to lift the phone to speak to his mother through the glass partition when she visited. 

His mother contacted a nurse at the jail to complain about her son’s deteriorating condition and the same day he was taken to a local hospital for treatment.

‘[Overfield] has not had access to his HIV medication since taken into custody in February,’ the nurse wrote in medical records reviewed by The LA Times. 

‘Defendants were either unaware of or, worse, ignoring the severity of Nick’s general health and medical condition until they were forced to confront those things by his mother,’ the lawsuit reads. 

Overfield died of a viral infection, varicella zoster virus encephalitis, which is among the conditions associated with AIDS, according to his family’s attorney, Ty Clarke.

After a short stay in the hospital Overfield was moved into hospice care and died in June 2022.  

‘I’m very disappointed, very angry. I would like justice for my son,’ Lesley told the LA Times. 

‘I would like some accountability for their actions. Why did my son lay there in jail for two weeks with no one addressing it?’

‘In a tragic and inevitable turn of events, Nick’s health had deteriorated at an alarming rate during and as a result of his detention at El Dorado County Jail,’ wrote Clarke in the lawsuit.

Adding: ‘Despite having Nick’s prescribed HIV medication, and despite having been told [by] Nick upon his arrest that he needed his HIV medication to keep his HIV in check, Defendants failed to provide Nick with his HIV medication. 

‘As a direct and proximate result, Nick’s HIV devolved into AIDS.’ 

The lawsuit is filed against the county of El Dorado as well as Wellpath Community Care, who provides contracted healthcare to federal facilities.