CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The associate warden of Cuyahoga County’s troubled jail system pleaded guilty Monday to two misdemeanor charges that accused him of ordering corrections officers to turn off their body cameras after an inmate died of a drug overdose, and lying to investigators probing the death.

Eric Ivey, the former longtime warden whose persona has been ubiquitous with the county lockup, agreed as part of the plea to resign his position at the jail once he is sentenced, cooperate with investigators and testify truthfully in ongoing investigations into the conditions in the county jail and potential corruption in Cuyahoga County government.

Ivey pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and falsification. He faces a sentence of anywhere from probation to up to a year behind bars at the Cuyahoga County Jail that he once supervised.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Nancy Fuerst accepted Ivey’s plea, and set sentencing for Sept. 30.

Investigators agreed to end any investigations into allegations they are currently aware of involving Ivey, but reserve the right to probe any future accusations against the jail’s former warden.

Ivey declined to comment when approached after the hearing.

Ivey, 54, of Euclid, was singled out in a damning November U.S. Marshals Service report as someone who facilitated civil rights violations of inmates at the jail, where eight inmates died in 2018. Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish’s administration admitted to cleveland.com last month that its human resources department conducted no internal investigation into the claims against Ivey contained in the report.

Ivey was demoted to associate warden Feb. 11, after a separate internal investigation found he violated the county’s nepotism policy. He never faced discipline in connection with the marshals’ report.

Criminal defense attorney Larry Zukerman, who along with former U.S. Attorney Steve Dettelbach is representing Budish personally in the probe, attended Ivey’s plea. He declined to comment to cleveland.com when asked if he was there on Budish’s behalf.

Ivey is among nine current or former jail employees to face criminal charges in connection with sprawling investigations into allegations of mistreatment of inmates and corruption in Cuyahoga County government. Special prosecutors working for the Ohio Attorney General’s office have said in court filings that they expect to charge more employees in the coming weeks.

Ivey, a 28-year veteran of the jail, was the second employee charged in the death of inmate Joseph Arquillo, a 47-year-old man who died in the jail Aug. 27 of what the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office later determined to be a drug overdose. Arquillo -- who was booked into the jail on probation violations charges -- had heroin, fentanyl, cocaine and Valium in his system approximately nine hours before he died, the medical examiner’s office determined.

Surveillance video from the jail showed that Arquillo lay motionless on a mat for two hours before anyone checked on him. A corrections officer, identified as Martin Devring, at one point walked up, kicked Arquillo’s mat and walked away.

Another hour passed before another inmate alerted a different officer. Arquillo was rushed to MetroHealth, where he was pronounced dead.

Prosecutors said Ivey ordered corrections officers to turn off their body cameras during the investigation into Arquillo’s death.

Arquillo’s death became part of the growing investigation, started by Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley’s office, into allegations of inmate abuse and neglect in the jail. O’Malley turned oversight of that investigation over to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office in January.

Ivey met with investigators for an April 17 interview and lied to them about his motivation for ordering his subordinates to turn off their cameras. He told them that he did so because he wanted to protect Arquillo’s medical privacy, “when his true purpose was to prevent the evidence from being used in an official proceeding,” according to the indictment in his case.

Ivey was put on paid leave April 19 after he was charged.

Devring, 60, is charged with violating civil rights and dereliction of duty after being accused of ignoring Arquillo as he was dying in the jail. He was fired after the incident and has pleaded not guilty.

Ivey, according to the marshals report, personally ordered guards to deprive inmates of food as punishment, failed to make weekly visits to the jail, did not check on inmates held in isolation or segregation and failed to supervise the jail’s Special Response Team, nicknamed the “Men in Black,” who denied basic hygiene items to inmates.

Members of the SRT team have since been charged with crimes or given internal punishment for attacks and the sale of drugs to inmates.

Cuyahoga County Sheriff Clifford Pinkney told cleveland.com reporters and editors during a Feb. 6 editorial board interview that he asked the county’s human resources department to investigate the accusations against Ivey contained in the marshals’ report.

The human resources department never initiated that investigation, county spokeswoman Mary Louise Madigan told cleveland.com last month, after repeated requests over the status of the investigation. The head of human resources, Douglas Dykes, is also under felony indictment on unrelated charges.

Former Director of Corrections Ken Mills was indicted in February on charges that he lied to investigators about his role in blocking the hiring of nurses at the jail. He has pleaded not guilty.

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