Inmate Dies After Several Overdose On Fentanyl: Pinellas Sheriff

LARGO, FL — The death of an inmate who overdosed on fentanyl at the Pinellas County Jail is under investigation, authorities said.

Jesse Stout, 37, was booked into the jail on Sept. 29 on charges of domestic battery, two counts of violation of pretrial release, tampering with a witness and resisting an officer without violence, according to a Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office news release.

Detention staff responded to a possible fentanyl exposure in a housing pod at the jail around 6:40 p.m. Four inmates with symptoms were brought to the hospital. One told deputies that he snorted fentanyl.

A nurse, three detention deputies and a Largo Fire Department paramedic were also treated for non–life-threatening symptoms, the sheriff’s office said.

The pod was evacuated and all inmates and areas within it were searched.

On Sunday, just before 2 a.m., detention staff responded to another pod in the jail after three inmates showed symptoms of possible fentanyl exposure, PCSO said.

Stout was found unresponsive in his cell, and he and two other inmates were brought to the hospital.

He was pronounced dead around 3:40 a.m. The two other inmates are hospitalized in stable condition.

Investigators learned that the inmates got the fentanyl from another inmate who swallowed small baggies of the drug at the time of his arrest. Once the drugs passed, he distributed them to other inmates at the jail, the sheriff’s office said.

When detectives interviewed inmates from the second pod and asked them why they would take the drugs after watching others overdose, they said, “because we are drug addicts,” the agency said.