State balks on paying for teen’s funeral

MIAMI -- The state’s top financial officer is refusing to pay the funeral expenses for a teenager who died in state custody after unsuccessfully seeking medical attention for several hours, despite a three-year-old policy to pay such costs.

Juvenile justice administrators had offered to pay up to $5,000 in funeral costs to bury 18-year-old Eric Perez, who died at the West Palm Beach detention center on July 10. But after the state cut a check to the Tillman Funeral Home, Florida’s chief financial officer ordered that the check be destroyed, records show.

Perez, who was detained at the Palm Beach County Juvenile Detention Center on a marijuana possession charge, would not have been the first child whose funeral expenses were paid by the state.

In November 2008, the Department of Juvenile Justice paid for the funeral of a Tampa Bay-area youth, said agency spokesman C.J. Drake. In January 2009, the agency helped bury a Highlands County youth. Drake could not identify the children due to confidentiality laws, he said.

“The Department of Juvenile Justice has a policy dating from 2008 authorizing the payment of funeral expenses when a youth dies in our custody,” Drake told The Miami Herald.

“The chief financial officer printed the check and sent it over to us,” Drake said, referring to the agency’s offer to pay for Eric’s funeral. “Then they said, ‘Whoa, don’t send it.’” The funeral home, Drake said, has received no payment from the state.

In a July 26 email to DJJ, the CFO’s chief of auditing, Mark Merry, said DJJ “does not have statutory authority to make the payment.”

Perez’s mother, 47-year-old Maritza Perez, was too distraught Friday afternoon to discuss her son’s burial expenses, which totaled $7,600.

“They killed him in there,” is all Perez could say Friday.

Drake said state officials are still discussing the funeral expenses. “I’m confident that we can work out an agreement so that the expenses are paid,” he said Friday afternoon.

But a spokeswoman for the finance chief seemed to suggest late Friday that the CFO’s office is unlikely to budge.

In an email to The Herald, a CFO spokeswoman, Anna A. Alexopoulis, said Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater “wants to have resolution on this claim, and in a timely manner for the family.”

“The Department of Juvenile Justice was advised that they did not have the statutory authority to pay for funeral expenses,” Alexopoulis wrote.

Perez turned 18 on July 2, a few days after he was arrested. At about 1:30 a.m. on July 10, he complained his head hurt, and he vomited and appeared to be hallucinating for the next seven hours.

A guard on duty in Perez’s cellblock told The Herald that he wanted to call for an ambulance, but both his supervisor and the lockup’s superintendent forbade him from calling 911.

Perez was pronounced dead at 8:09 a.m., minutes after paramedics arrived. Records show the youth had stopped breathing before paramedics got there.

In the days after Perez’s death, Walters, the state’s top juvenile justice administrator, suspended five guards and the lockup’s superintendent, Anthony C. Flowers. Walters later fired one guard and his supervisor.

This story was originally published August 1, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "State balks on paying for teen’s funeral."