{"id":1823,"date":"2022-07-22T17:46:04","date_gmt":"2022-07-23T00:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/?p=1823"},"modified":"2022-07-22T17:46:04","modified_gmt":"2022-07-23T00:46:04","slug":"grand-jury-indicts-california-school-staffers-in-2018-death-of-13-year-old-autistic-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/07\/22\/grand-jury-indicts-california-school-staffers-in-2018-death-of-13-year-old-autistic-boy\/","title":{"rendered":"Grand Jury Indicts California School Staffers in 2018 Death Of 13-year-old Autistic Boy"},"content":{"rendered":"<pre>MICHAEL MCGOUGH, Sacramento Bee<\/pre>\n<p>(PLACERVILLE, CALIFORNIA) July 22, 2022 \u2014 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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Each was indicted on one charge of involuntary manslaughter in the boy\u2019s November 2018 death, El Dorado County District Attorney\u2019s Office spokeswoman Savannah Broddrick confirmed Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s mother. Other staffers allegedly assisted in holding down his legs and in performing a \u201ctakedown maneuver\u201d on the teen.<\/p>\n<p>Attorneys for the school in statements a few months after Max\u2019s death said [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aol.com\/news\/grand-jury-indicts-california-school-144253627.html?guccounter=1&amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJgYgS5XkWEOUYB97BPVtDCfZN1WXWT7bVLHIGkeed8fKwr6drYDamdhjRs53dy2IwsxYqgaCg0d0YEGmHY-6GOBeVkHpU16E86qAGIrBtBIOwO4rfHxfwnl_zDt5ByF4Bpzgkh5haJqg0nvqOIWKKGaIwhtF4ICRD3FioTQWLu5?utm_source=InEDC&amp;utm_medium=News&amp;utm_campaign=Placerville&amp;utm_content=Eyeballs-via-Placerville-Newswire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">READ MORE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The new indictments mark the first significant development in the court proceedings since January 2021<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1823"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1826,"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1823\/revisions\/1826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}