An inmate at the Cumberland County Jail was found unresponsive in his cell, and now a Windham man is being charged with providing the drugs that ended his life. James Ryan Mannion had been jailed since December 2021 on drug charges. Before his arrest, Mannion struggled with substance use but ultimately found success in sobriety and was working as a barber. Peter Curtis, who was incarcerated alongside Mannion at the time, has been accused of inmate death for providing him the fentanyl powder that caused his death.
Attorney Alexis Garmey Chardon of Garmey Law is representing Mannion’s two young daughters. She is investigating if his death may have been prevented had he been given the proper treatment for substance use disorder in jail.
“This was a man who had a known drug addiction and needed help, and there are questions about whether he was protected in a way that he should have been, and whether he was provided the healthcare he needed as a result of being addicted,” said Chardon. “James was a person who had experienced a lot of success being sober, and I think there’s a lot of reasons to think he would be able to do that again. Which is why this is particularly tragic.”
You can read more of this story in the Portland Press Herald.
