Omar Zayas Legal Representation

A quick intro to this page's organizer: John Gaughan is a friend and former roommate of Omar. They met through church in Philadelphia, PA in 2018. He has been working closely with Omar's aunt, Nancy Valdes, to rally the help Omar needs at this time, and to help relieve financial and logistical stress for Omar's immediate family while they deal with the immense emotional burden of this experience.

Dear family and friends of Omar,

If you know Omar Zayas, you know he is loving, warm, considerate, and responsible. Omar has a heart of gold, a love for God and the people around him, and an inspiring commitment to growing as a person each day.

 

You may also know that he struggles with a severe mental health disorder, which has caused massive disruptions and challenges for himself and his family since it began manifesting in his teenage years.

 

When Omar is on the right medications and stable, he is kind, thoughtful, and generally wonderful to be around. Unfortunately, it’s very prevalent among people with his condition to stop taking their medication and have relapses. This is due to a host of factors: struggling with a drug’s side effects, complacency because the individual hasn’t felt negative symptoms for an extended period, and even an inability to perceive that you’re unwell and need medication (this is called anosognosia).

 

When he is not on his medications and a treatment plan, he experiences tremendous negative emotions and mental instability. He will frequently have delusional and hallucinogenic episodes that completely distort his grasp on reality. These episodes can lead to erratic–and on rare occasions, violent–behavior which he would never otherwise engage in. Omar has consequently had several sagas with a criminal justice system that is crushingly ill-designed and unfit for people who battle with severe mental health conditions.

What happened?

In October 2021, Omar lived with his grandparents in the Jacksonville, FL area. He had great things ahead: he had been mentally stable for a prolonged period and qualified for disability benefits due to his diagnosis. He was engaged to a woman he was deeply in love with. Due to a past criminal conviction (which stemmed from a mental health episode), he was just two months away from the end of probation.

 

Unfortunately, Omar ended up off his medication regime. His grandparents noticed the changes and urged him to check into a nearby mental health facility. He physically went to the facility twice in 3-4 days with family members. Per the facility’s policy, they inquired if he considered himself a threat to himself or others before they would give him an assessment and determine if he should be checked in. He responded “No” to this question in both visits, and the staff refused to provide any assessment or treatment. This is a problematic policy for people with Omar’s condition, who may be literally incapable of recognizing they need care. His grandparents urged and pleaded with staff to do something for him, expressing that he was at high risk of seriously hurting himself or someone else, but they declined. 

 

Soon after these attempts to have Omar admitted for treatment, he instigated a violent incident with two family members. They felt they had no choice but to call the police, and Omar was subsequently arrested.

 

After his incarceration and what must have been a poorly-conducted health assessment, they placed Omar in the jail’s general inmate population. Still off of his medications, Omar instigated two more violent encounters in the following weeks.

 

These additional incidents were abundantly avoidable, and Omar’s family did their best to prevent them from occurring. When the police arrived at the scene of the original incident, Omar’s family members emphatically communicated to police that he had a severe mental illness, was not on his medication, and was in full psychosis when the domestic incident occurred. As soon as Omar’s mother found out he was incarcerated, she started calling the jail 3-4 times each day to share his medical history and drug prescriptions with the right people at the jail. She only succeeded after several attempts over several days. Meanwhile, Omar’s aunt, Nancy Valdes, repeatedly reached out to the jail to find out what they were doing to end his mental episode and to request that they keep him out of the general inmate population to avoid harming anyone. After the two additional incidents had already happened, she was finally put in touch with the jail’s watch commander, who looked over Omar’s case and expressed surprise and concern at the jail’s handling of his situation.

 

The jail now knows about his condition, but to our knowledge, he is still not receiving proper treatment as of mid-March 2022. This is no surprise—a jail is not a hospital, nor a dedicated mental health facility, which is what Omar needs to stabilize successfully.

 

What happens next?

Because of these three incidents (the initial domestic incident and the two since his incarceration), Omar could face 10-15 years in prison.

 

From late 2021 to February 2022, a private firm was assigned by and paid for by the state government to represent Omar. The firm was neglectful of his case, resistant to taking his mental health diagnosis into account in forming his defense, and very poor at communicating with Omar’s family.

 

For Omar to have some chance at a decent future, he needed a better lawyer. We did extensive research, interviewed potential lawyers while raising money among close friends and family, and hired Lisa Varon of the Jacksonville law firm Fallgatter, Catlin, & Varon in late February.

 

The difference has already been night and day in her first three weeks! Ms. Varon and her team have been focused on getting Omar the treatment he needs right away, and they have been extremely communicative with Omar’s family. They are building a solid defense that fully incorporates his mental health history and diagnosis.

Who is responsible?

 

You could spend a lot of time parsing responsibility for this situation: why didn’t Omar stay on his medication? Couldn’t the mental health facility have made an exception given his family’s pleas to admit him for treatment? Why did the police, or the medical expert who assessed him when he arrived at the jail, not have him sent to a high-security hospital given his psychotic state? Why was he given additional opportunities to harm himself or others in jail when his family tried so hard to prevent it? And, the question probably at the back of your mind: how responsible is Omar for everything that happened?

 

I can’t answer these questions. But I can tell you this: the Omar I know is a wonderful man. It’s abundantly clear to me that he would not have done anything like this if he was well. Omar’s future has not been blown up because “he had it coming.” Omar has been failed in devastating ways by his mind, the mental health facility, and the criminal justice system, despite his and his family's efforts to prevent this from happening. 

 

15 years of prison is not justice for what has happened, and it is MUCH more likely to harm than help Omar’s long-term ability to thrive, successfully manage his condition, and prevent incidents like this in the future. 

 

What can we do to help Omar?

 

Omar needed a much better lawyer. In late February 2022, we hired Fallgatter, Catlin, & Varon, P.A. to defend him. Thankfully, we raised enough to pay the firm 50% of their $12,500 flat fee (which covers most, but not all, expenses involved in representing him unless the case goes to trial). Omar cannot afford to pay these fees.

 

Right now, we are focused raising enough to pay the second half of Ms. Varon’s base fee of $12,500. We need to raise this amount by March 20, 2022, for Ms. Varon to continue representing Omar--and we are less than $100 away!

 

There will be additional fees for transcriptions of testimonies, expert witnesses, and other costs not included in the flat $12,500 fee in the coming weeks. This is why our fundraising goal exceeds $12,500.

 

We are so grateful to everyone who has donated and helped in any way! Getting better representation for Omar has brought peace of mind to Omar's family and will fundamentally change his future for the better.

 

If you can help in any way–whether it’s $20, $50, $100, $500, or more–it would mean the world to Omar and his family. We transfer all donations to a checking account used solely for paying Omar’s legal fees.

 

Thank you, truly, for whatever you can do.