Grand Jury Indicts California School Staffers in 2018 Death Of 13-year-old Autistic Boy
MICHAEL MCGOUGH, Sacramento Bee
(PLACERVILLE, CALIFORNIA) July 22, 2022 — A criminal grand jury has indicted an El Dorado County private school and three of its staffers in the death of Max Benson, a 13-year-old student with autism who suffered fatal brain damage after being held face-down in a prone restraint for nearly two hours.
A recently convened special criminal grand jury indicted Guiding Hands, a now-closed special needs school in El Dorado Hills, along with former site administrator Cindy Keller, principal Starrane Meyers and teacher Kimberly Wohlwend.
Each was indicted on one charge of involuntary manslaughter in the boy’s November 2018 death, El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Savannah Broddrick confirmed Wednesday.
The indictments, which remain sealed, come in conjunction with the manslaughter charges county prosecutors filed against the defendants in November 2019. The three educators each entered a not guilty plea at an initial arraignment that month.
Wohlwend is accused of holding Max in the restraint position for more than an hour and 45 minutes, according to a separate civil lawsuit filed by the boy’s mother. Other staffers allegedly assisted in holding down his legs and in performing a “takedown maneuver” on the teen.
Attorneys for the school in statements a few months after Max’s death said […]