In February 2020, a photo of Yakima County Coroner Jim Curtice in his office. Curtice is on paid leave at the moment. According to the police, he utilized narcotics that he had stolen from dead people in his workplace before lying about it.TNS/Yakima Herald-Republic/Amanda Ray
WASHIMI. Jim Curtice, the embattled Yakima County Coroner, was charged with lying to the police on Friday about sniffing illegal substances off dead bodies in his office and using them while working.
Curtice, making his first public appearance since going on paid vacation in September, pleaded not guilty to official misconduct, false statements, and evidence tampering in Yakima County District Court. The maximum penalty for the gross misdemeanor counts is one year in prison.
Last August, when Curtice blamed a hospital visit on someone possibly adding cocaine and fentanyl to his energy and workout drinks, police and the FBI started looking into the matter. Police claim that Curtice acknowledged to taking narcotics he discovered on dead people and tampering with the powder in his own exercise drink to support his initial account after failing a polygraph test.
Last month, Curtice was charged but not taken into custody or imprisoned. Judge Brian Sanderson freed him on his own recognizance on Friday, with the stipulation that he abstain from alcohol and illegal narcotics.
However, the elected coroner will continue to face pressure. Curtice faces a recall movement and scrutiny for a death in the jail in addition to his criminal prosecution. Curtice denied an interview request following his arraignment.
Jail death
In October, Hien Trung Hua’s mother filed a $50 million tort claim, alleging that her son was killed by Yakima County jail guards and that Curtice and other county officials conspired to conceal the death’s circumstances.
After the Seattle Times reported that Hua was detained during a mental health crisis and was subsequently pepper-sprayed, handcuffed, struck, and held prone prior to his death from heart failure in November 2023, she filed the claim.
A Times article compared Hua’s situation to Curtice’s, who was hospitalized instead of imprisoned and spared from prosecution after a drunken altercation with sheriff’s officers earlier that year.
In his capacity as coroner, Curtice was in charge of looking into Hua’s passing and ordering an autopsy from a forensic pathologist. Jeffrey Reynolds, a pathologist and curtice, described Hua’s death as natural.
Reynolds claimed he hadn’t seen any footage of Hua’s battle in jail during an interview with The Times last summer. He modified his manner-of-death determination to negligent homicide after seeing the tapes. Curtice chose to reclassify Hua’s death as an accident rather than heed that advice.
Warning letter
According to public papers obtained by The Times last month, Reynolds expressed worries about Curtice to a county official nearly two years ago, before to Curtice’s drug arrest and the tort claim over Hua’s death.
Reynolds sent county prosecutor Joe Brusic a warning letter and a report full of mistakes, which he claimed as an example of Curtice’s work, after Brusic declined to charge Curtice with kicking a sheriff’s officer in March 2023.
There were obvious name and date errors in the report on a vehicle crash death.
As a lawyer, I’m sure you understand that Yakima County will eventually pay a price for the numerous mistakes in this routine coroner’s report that was provided to the deceased’s family. “The entire contents of the report could be construed as doubtful if this were a criminal case,” Reynolds wrote.
In 2023, Brusic refused to charge Curtice, claiming the coroner had gone through a mental health crisis. Because of his previous experience as a first responder, Curtice ascribed the crisis to post-traumatic stress disorder.
Reynolds wrote to Brusic in April 2023, expressing his belief that the coroner shouldn’t continue to work in a position that might exacerbate his PTSD.
The pathologist noted, “Yakima County has been clearly warned.”
Next steps
In order to avoid any conflicts of interest for Brusic, the municipal prosecutor for Ellensburg is managing Curtice’s criminal case. Brusic is a prospective witness because Curtice contacted him following the hospital visit in August that resulted in his criminal case.
March 27 is Curtice’s next court date. Since he is an independently elected official, voters must remove him in a regular or recall election, even if the majority of Yakima County authorities have called for his resignation.
Curtice is a two-term Republican who was last elected in 2022. Three officers from the Yakima County GOP precinct committee are spearheading the recall movement.
According to their recall allegations, Curtice frequently slept at his desk and submitted false reports, in addition to being accused of lying about taking drugs from dead people. Last month, a judge approved their ballot description, clearing the path for the collection of petition signatures. To be on the ballot, they will require roughly 13,500 votes.
If Curtice goes back to work, Reynolds and Chief Deputy Coroner Marshall Slight have stated that they will resign. Curtice mentioned Slight to the police when he first informed them he believed he had been drugged and they asked him who he suspected.
Jim’s recent behavior has made it unsafe for me to work with him. Later, Slight sent a letter to the human resources department of the county.
Beekman, Daniel, The Seattle Times
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