The AG真人百家乐 County district attorney's office has indicted a North Austin assisted living facility and two of its workers for the death of a resident during the statewide blackout and freeze in 2021.
Cynthia Pierce lived at the now-defunct Renaissance Austin. As temperatures plummeted, leaving millions without power and heat, Pierce was alone, in an unheated room at the facility.
An open window exposed the 73-year-old to freezing conditions for hours. When she was finally taken to a hospital, she had severe hypothermia and died shortly after arriving.
The indictments are rarity in Texas. related to the fatal 2021 Texas freeze has gone to trial in civil courts, and none of those defendants 鈥� the majority of which are massive energy companies 鈥� have faced criminal charges. The crippling blackout lasted for five days and led to the deaths of hundreds of Texans.
AG真人百家乐 County District Attorney Jos茅 Garza said Pierce's attorneys in a civil case requested his office look into her death this January. A AG真人百家乐 County grand jury returned the three indictments against two employees and the facility in late July. Garza worked with the Austin Police Department, which had also been investigating Renaissance and its employees.
"All families should know that when their loved ones reside in an assisted living facility, they will be safe," Garza said. "When employers and their employees engage in criminal conduct and expose vulnerable people to dangerous living conditions, this office will hold them accountable."
Pierce's family filed a lawsuit against Renaissance and two employees, Mendi Ramsay and Rochelle Alvarado, in civil court in early 2023. That case is still pending in court.
Both Ramsay and Alvarado were indicted by a grand jury with injury to an elderly person, a state jail felony that carries a two-year sentence and a $10,000 fine.
Prosecutors accuse both Ramsay and Alvarado of failing to notify the state that Renaissance's power was out over the freeze and that they didn't move Pierce to a warmer space, which led to her death.
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Pierce was transported to Ascension Seton Hospital in Northwest Austin and died shortly after on Feb. 17, 2021. Her body temperature, the lawsuit alleges, was 94 degrees 鈥� a temperature that suggested she'd been left in the cold for hours.
