The man, who has not been identified, was found unresponsive in a housing unit at about 2 p.m. He was taken to the , where he was pronounced dead, according to the agency’s news release.

The Denver Police Department is conducting an investigation into the man’s death, the Sheriff’s Department said.

Executive Director Al Gardner issued a four-page directive Wednesday exempting at least 14 types of policy violations from default investigation by the department’s Public Integrity Division, a civilian unit created in 2019 to investigate internal affairs complaints and policy violations for the sheriff’s department.

The directive also empowers a team within the sheriff’s department to screen complaints from inmates and others to determine whether the complaints should be .

That team will also screen some sexual assault allegations against deputies, and will handle investigations into body-worn camera policy violations unless it finds a deputy intentionally turned off their camera or it is at least a deputy’s third violation of the policy, according to the directive.

The thrust of the change is to empower first-line supervisors to handle minor disciplinary issues to try to “unburden” staff from onerous and “unnecessary” internal affairs investigations, Sheriff Elias Diggins said Thursday.

He said he hopes the move will improve morale, retention and hiring at the chronically understaffed agency, where he said the outside scrutiny leaves deputies feeling like they are walking on eggshells.

“We have created, with the system we put in place, an eggshell culture,” he said. “We want to put deputies on solid ground, make sure they are doing their jobs, give the support they need — and if there is an issue that needs to go to internal affairs, that process still exists.”

The unilateral shift raised alarm among the . Julia Richman, a member of Denver’s Citizen Oversight Board, called the directive “disheartening.”

“The board is never in favor of reduced accountability, reduced transparency and a lack of engagement in the community about big changes. This is just that,” she said.

Lisabeth PĂ©rez Castle, the city’s independent monitor, said in a statement that the vague new approach to discipline does not clearly explain how safety officials will comply with city laws regarding the monitor’s oversight. The directive reduces transparency and exposes the city to potential liability, she said.

The new process will also make it difficult to know whether the sheriff department is “addressing all allegations of misconduct or if it is selectively enforcing rules against some staff members, but not others,” she said.

It was complaints about unfair and incomplete internal investigations by the sheriff’s department that prompted city officials to create the Public Integrity Division — which is housed within the Department of Public Safety, rather than the sheriff’s office — after a pair of outside reviews found significant problems with the sheriff department’s internal affairs process.

The division took over internal affairs investigations for the sheriff’s department, which runs Denver’s jails and provides security in the city’s courts.

Diggins noted he was interim sheriff during the push for the Public Integrity Division and was part of implementing the reforms.

“What I would call them is perhaps changes that may have been thought to be good at the time, but what we have today is a system that does not work well,” he said. “We have 50%-plus of our staff under investigation because of the measures that were put into place back then. That is unheard of in any law enforcement agency.”

Under the new approach, first-line supervisors will be responsible for investigating some categories of infractions and determining whether the policy violation warrants an internal affairs investigation, he said. If a deputy violates the same type of policy three times in three years, the fourth violation must be sent over to the Public Integrity Division, Diggins said.

Supervisors will be empowered to offer coaching and verbal counseling, and to recommend that deputies go through additional training, he said, adding that he personally taught an hour-long training on the new approach to supervisors on Wednesday. The supervisors will document the counseling in the sheriff department’s human resources software.

Richman, the Citizen Oversight Board member, does not believe first-line supervisors are equipped to thoroughly review misconduct allegations and make informed decisions on what warrants further review.

“If that was a process that had worked in the past, we would not have had to develop independent oversight, because supervisors could be trusted to do complete, thorough and sufficient reviews,” she said. “But they don’t. They don’t have time. They don’t have expertise. They can’t be bothered with it because it is a huge pain.”

Diggins said he has the “utmost faith” that supervisors will “hold people accountable when necessary.”

Gardner wrote in the directive that the changes are designed to ensure the Public Integrity Division “functions as originally envisioned.” He did not return a request for comment Thursday.

“These changes are also necessary to reaffirm the Denver Sheriff Department¶¶Ňőap (DSD) authority over personnel matters that should rightfully be addressed and resolved by DSD,” the directive reads. “As a result of previous adjustments to the process, DSD has been left with limited decision-making authority regarding employee conduct, and the PID has been inundated with administrative matters better suited for DSD review.”

The Public Integrity Division is used primarily for the sheriff’s department; Denver’s police and fire departments rely on their own internal affairs bureaus. The division also handles complaints about high-ranking leaders within the Department of Public Safety.

For policy violations that are shifted back to the sheriff’s purview — which the directive calls “performance issues” — the sheriff will still refer some of the matters to the Public Integrity Division if they reach a certain threshold of severity or are repeated, according to the directive.

For a number of the exempted violations, the threshold for an internal affairs investigation is “only if an incident or actual harm occurs,” according to Gardner’s directive.

That is the standard set for bringing weapons and cellphones into a secure area, safeguarding department property, monitoring the radio, misusing department letterhead, badges or insignia, secondary employment violations, and recommending bondsmen or attorneys to inmates.

“If you leave your weapon unsecured in the facility but no one gets hurt, it’s OK?” Richman said. “How could that possibly be a policy in a correctional facility?”

Richman said the approach may incentivize deputies to overlook policy violations if such violations rarely rise to serious discipline.

“The culture in public safety departments and in Denver is to take care of your own,” she said. “This approach takes (that stance) and possibly has an impact that says, ‘Don’t report, it is not considered a big deal, you won’t have to be disciplined for it.'”

Dorbor Mulbah started at the training academy in January and was set to graduate in May, Sheriff Elias Diggins said in a statement.

Mulbah “expressed discomfort and became unwell” after physical training on Tuesday, the sheriff said. Academy staff started life-saving measures until Denver Fire Department crews and paramedics arrived and took him to the hospital.

Mulbah died Wednesday morning, the sheriff’s department said.

The DSD’s administrative investigative unit will investigate Mulbah’s death “as a matter of protocol,” Diggins said.

” We have deployed wellness and mental health resources for the Academy cadre, to include the recruits,” he said.

Martinez faces charges of official misconduct and introducing contraband into the facility, both misdemeanors. The Public Integrity Division opened an investigation into the allegations, and Martinez was placed on leave on Jan. 3.

Martinez, 33, allegedly provided a vape pen to an inmate and arranged for the inmate to pay him $60 via CashApp, according to an arrest affidavit provided by the Denver Police Department. The inmate said he had asked Martinez if he could have his vape pen, and was turned down. Martinez allegedly told him, “I could make a killing selling vapes.”

The inmate continued to ask, and the two later reached terms for a sale, which was paid for by a third party on the outside. Another deputy noticed the suspicious interactions between Martinez and the inmate and requested a review of camera footage. A body search of the inmate found the vape pen, as well as a second one.

Martinez became a deputy sheriff in 2024. He was released from the same facility where he once worked on a personal recognizance bond.

He will appear in Denver County Court for an advisement on Feb. 25.

The deputy, Justin Parchem, will serve a 30-day suspension from the Denver Sheriff Department after he failed to notice the inmate’s distress for several minutes during the May 31, 2024, incident at Denver’s Downtown Detention Center, even as other inmates tried to revive the man by throwing water on him.

Inmate Michael Blume, 36, died from the toxic effects of fentanyl, according to an autopsy report from Denver’s Office of Medical Examiner.

The incident unfolded shortly after midnight, according to a Jan. 2 disciplinary letter released to The Denver Post on Wednesday. From about 12:13 a.m. until about 12:22 a.m., inmates in the jail pod appeared to be aware that Blume was in trouble and tried to revive him by splashing water on him, the internal investigation found.

“Individuals are seen accessing the supply closet, gathering buckets and a mop, making multiple trips to the sink to fill a bucket with water, dousing (Blume) with water, and attempting to mop up the puddle,” a disciplinary letter reads.

Parchem did not immediately notice the inmates’ unusual activities and later admitted he was watching TV on his computer, according to the disciplinary letter, which also found he failed to check the pod’s showers during his rounds between 9:50 p.m. and 12:20 a.m. that night.

Parchem walked to Blume’s bunk area at about 12:22 a.m., dragged Blume out of the area and called for a medical emergency. The deputy and inmates started CPR and Parchem gave Blume a dose of the overdose-reversal drug Narcan, according to the letter.

Other deputies and jail medical staff responded immediately. EMTs arrived at about 12:31 a.m., according to the disciplinary letter, and firefighters a few minutes later. Blume was wheeled out of the pod at 12:44 a.m. and was pronounced dead at 1 a.m., about 10 minutes after he arrived at a hospital, according to the autopsy report.

“Deputy Parchem’s inattention may have delayed the time it took for him to recognize the situation, and ultimately delayed the time that elapsed before a medical emergency was called,” the disciplinary letter reads.

Parchem, who was hired in 2020, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

He previously served a 10-day suspension for pepper-spraying an inmate locked in a cell after the man threw food at the deputy.

An emergency medical team responded to the jail after the man was found at 3:30 a.m., but he was pronounced dead a short time later, sheriff’s officials said.

The man’s death will be investigated by the Denver Police Department. The Denver Office of the Medical Examiner identified him as 49-year-old Philip Perry and said the cause and manner of his death are under investigation.

Updated at 2:10 p.m., May 28, 2026: This story was updated to include the identity of the man who died.

The Oct. 17 incident began when Sgt. Carla Gentempo, 43, and her husband, Deputy Jason Gentempo, 44, learned that the 17-year-old — with whom they were personally connected — was at a Denver apartment where the couple believed there to be a “sexual torture chamber,” according to the affidavits. The teen’s relationship to the couple was redacted in court records.

The Gentempos, who were not on duty, drove to the Denver home to pick up the 17-year-old. When they arrived, the teen and a man in a wheelchair met them in front of the man’s apartment. The Gentempos beat the man up in an attack captured on surveillance footage, according to the affidavits.

That video footage shows Carla Gentempo punch the man in a wheelchair in the head and kick him in the chest. Jason Gentempo also struck the man and stomped on the man’s cellphone, according to the court records. The couple then collected the teen and left with the teen, according to the affidavits.

Both of the Gentempos were arrested on suspicion of third-degree assault on an at-risk person, court records show. An attorney for Carla did not return a request for comment Wednesday; Jason could not be reached.

Carla Gentempo was hired by the Denver Sheriff Department in 2010, while Jason was hired in 2005, sheriff’s records show.

Jason Gentempo later told investigators that he believed the man in the wheelchair met the 17-year-old in a chatroom and took them to his home, where the man showed them “sexual bondage items” and put some of the items on the teen with their consent, though the man and the teen did not have sex, according to the affidavit.

The man in the wheelchair, whose identity was redacted in court records, told officers that he believed the teen was 18. He noted that he is a paraplegic.

After this story’s publication, the man contacted The Post and denied that he did anything sexual with the teenager and refuted the deputies’ characterization of a “sexual torture chamber.” He declined to be interviewed.

On Wednesday, a Denver police spokesperson said officers are continuing to investigate the man’s interactions with the 17-year-old and whether those constituted a crime. The man has not been charged.

Responding officer accused of cover-up

The man in the wheelchair reported the deputies’ attack to Denver police on the same day and told the responding officer, Denver police Officer Henry Soni, 26, that he believed the attackers were off-duty Denver officers.

At the man’s home that day, Soni reviewed surveillance video of the attack and gave the man in the wheelchair a case number — but then failed to file a report or enter the surveillance video as evidence in the case, according to the affidavit.

Instead, Soni deleted information about the assault allegation in his report filing system and told the man in the wheelchair that he would have to be arrested to pursue charges against the two deputies, investigators found.

The man in the wheelchair had an open warrant for his arrest in another matter, according to Soni’s arrest affidavit, but it was not clear whether Soni was referring to the man’s arrest on the open warrant or to the man’s potentially criminal actions with the 17-year-old.

In official records, Soni wrote that the man in the wheelchair “does not want to file a report at this time.” The officer’s body-worn camera footage of his response to the man’s home was automatically logged into the police evidence storage system as being connected to an assault call, but Soni manually changed the footage the next day to be classified as “All Other/Non-event,” according to an affidavit.

Those types of videos are automatically deleted after 60 days, investigators noted.

Soni was arrested on suspicion of attempting to influence a public servant, forgery, evidence tampering and misconduct.

The affidavits for the three law enforcement officers do not mention a pre-existing connection between Soni and the Gentempos.

Soni could not be reached for comment Wednesday. A woman who claimed to be associated with him but who refused to identify herself said the officer would not speak publicly about the allegations, which she said were a “family matter.”

Sexual assault allegations

Separately, Soni was also arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a woman in an unrelated incident. In that case, investigators allege he visited the woman’s home and sexually assaulted her while he was on duty.

Soni met the woman in September when he responded to a call about a noise complaint, according to the affidavit. Soni then began texting and calling the woman regularly on his work-issued cellphone. He took her for a ride in his car, and on another occasion again responded to her home for a noise complaint, according to an affidavit.

Then, just before 2 a.m. on Nov. 4, the woman said she woke up to Soni knocking on her window. She’d been drinking alcohol earlier in the night and was confused, but she let Soni inside her home, where he sexually assaulted her, she told police, according to an affidavit.

The woman shared videos of Soni inside her apartment on the night in question, and told a friend she was scared and “felt like she couldn’t say ‘no’ because the officer was in uniform” and carrying his gun.

Investigators found Soni was supposed to be responding to another call during the time of the assault but never did, according to an affidavit. Another officer who handled the call alone later confronted Soni about it, and Soni did not give a good explanation for why he did not respond, according to an affidavit.

In that case, Soni was arrested on suspicion of two counts of sexual assault and two counts of unlawful sexual conduct by a police officer. He was hired by the Denver Police Department in 2024 and was assigned to overnight shifts.

Soni has been suspended without pay pending the outcome of the criminal investigation. The Gentempos were placed on investigatory leave on Dec. 11.

Sgt. Carla Gentempo and Deputy Jason Gentempo were arrested by the Denver Police Department on Thursday. Carla Gentempo was hired in 2010 and works in the administration division, and Jason Gentempo was hired in 2005 and works in the Downtown Detention Center.

Both were put on administrative leave after their arrests, the sheriff’s department said.

This is a developing story and may be updated.

Cristian Gondor, 57, who was hired as a deputy in January 2024, resigned Sept. 19, Denver Sheriff Department spokeswoman Daria Serna confirmed. The two women in March alleged that Gondor inappropriately touched incarcerated women, offered to provide them with benefits if he could view them naked, watched women shower and made inappropriate sexual comments and jokes.

One woman alleged that Gondor came to her bunk area, “placed his genitalia on her foot and made a groaning noise, followed by smiling and winking at her,” according to disciplinary records released Friday for a second deputy who was suspended for six days after he failed to immediately report the allegations against Gondor.

Gondor told The Denver Post the two women fabricated the allegations against him as retaliation after they were unhappy with how he enforced the jail’s rules. He admitted to telling inappropriate sexual jokes but said he never touched any inmates.

“I am not a pervert,” he said, adding that he told the dirty jokes because he was trying to match the incarcerated women’s tones.

“Sometimes the girls, they accepted, they wanted some inappropriate jokes, that is my mistake, I spoke their language,” he said. “They told me jokes about sex…and I talked back the jokes. That was one big mistake.”

Serna did not provide additional information about the allegations against Gondor or the outcome of the investigation into the alleged misconduct on Friday, but limited details about Gondor’s case were included in the second deputy’s disciplinary records.

Gondor told the Post the allegations against him were sustained and that he resigned instead of being fired. Additional records about the internal investigation into the allegations were not available Friday.

“I did nothing from these allegations,” Gondor said.

Denver police declined to say whether the department conducted a criminal investigation into Gondor, who has not been charged with any crimes. Gondor provided a letter that showed the police department investigated the claims of criminal conduct and the Denver District Attorney’s Office declined to pursue criminal charges.

Deputies who reviewed surveillance footage around the time of the women’s claims found Gondor demonstrating “questionable behavior,” one sergeant reported, according to the second deputy’s disciplinary records. Video also showed Gondor following a half-dressed woman as she left the shower. The woman is seen trying to cover herself up and then exchanging words with the deputy in an apparent argument, according to the disciplinary records.

Gondor said the woman was upset that he insisted she shower separately from another inmate.

One of the women reported the allegations against Gondor to Deputy Ahmed Al Obaidi in late February during a middle-of-the-night conversation; he helped her fill out a grievance form but did not immediately report the allegation to his supervisors as required by department policy.

Al Obaidi, who was hired in February 2024, apologized to internal investigators and said the woman’s allegation was the first time he had handled a complaint of sexual misconduct against a deputy. He said he reviewed the department’s policies around reporting such allegations — which requires such complaints to be immediately escalated — and would follow it going forward, according to the disciplinary records.

Updated 9:21 a.m. Dec. 8, 2025: This story was updated to include additional information provided after publication. 

The lawsuit is focused on visits between parents and children, and argues that between parents and their kids is both a violation of their constitutional rights and likely to cause long-term harm to everyone involved. The proposed class-action case includes both minor children who want to visit their incarcerated fathers, and mothers who want to visit their incarcerated sons.

“They’ve denied children the right to have contact visits with their parents, to be hugged by them, to look them in the eyes, to have the in-person relationship that is so necessary, especially for a child’s healthy development,” said Dan Meyer, litigation and policy director at , one of several organizations involved in the lawsuit.

The Colorado case is the third lawsuit filed as part of a recent to force jails to allow in-person family visits.

Adams County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Shea Haney declined to comment on the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs include 4- and 6-year-old siblings in Adams County who have not been able to visit their father since he was jailed in February, as well as a 9-year-old boy whose stepfather was jailed from June to October.

“To have to tell my child he wasn’t allowed to go see his dad, it was just really painful,” said Autumn Ray, mother of the 9-year-old boy.

She spent as much as $400 a month on calls to the jail during her husband’s incarceration, she said. A phone call to the jail currently costs 15 cents a minute, while video calls cost 20 cents a minute, according to the lawsuit.

Ray’s calls to the jail routinely stretched over an hour, she said, in part because the system for making calls often did not work, so she and her husband, whom she declined to name, would have more to catch up on when they could connect. The parents decided that spending the money on the phone calls was necessary as their son struggled with his dad’s absence, she said.

“His dad and I talked and decided it was worth using some of our savings for him to still be able to talk to his dad on the phone, because otherwise the full brunt of parenting a neurodivergent, grief-stricken child was fully on me,” she said.

The lawsuit alleges that the sheriff’s office is denying in-person visits to ramp up profits from the video and phone calls, and notes that the Colorado Supreme Court ordered the Adams County sheriff to allow in-person jail visits in 1978 — an order they say still stands. The jail has rooms dedicated to such visits that are going unused, the lawsuit alleges.

The jail has not allowed in-person visits for family and friends since at least 2006, and stopped offering free video calls at kiosks in its lobby in 2020, according to the complaint.

The jail now uses a company called HomeWAV to allow video and phone calls between inmates and their friends and family. The arrangement calls for the sheriff’s office to receive at least 40% of video call money and 80% of phone call money, according to the lawsuit.

The sheriff’s office has received $3.1 million under the contract since 2020, while HomeWAV has earned about $1.7 million, according to the complaint.

Colorado sheriffs have in the past cited staffing shortages and concerns about contraband as reasons not to allow in-person family visits. Meyer said those concerns can be overcome, and noted that in-person visits are .

“We are confident this can be done safely and affordably,” Meyer said.

Colorado lawmakers this year passed a new law that made in-person visitation a right for prisoners, and specified that it could not be replaced with . The state’s prisons are run separately from county jails.

Alexandra Jordan, an attorney at , a nonprofit legal advocacy organization also involved in the lawsuit, said the visitation policy is entirely within the control of Adams County officials.

“They could choose to change their policy tomorrow, and we hope that they do,” she said.

Ray, whose husband was recently transferred to a state prison, is now going through a 60-day waiting period before she and her son can visit in person. She marked the date — in the first week of December — on the calendar for her son, so he could see the first time in six months they’ll be able to visit his dad face to face.

“He is so excited,” she said.