Yakima coroner who was accused of stealing drugs from corpses to face criminal charges

YAKIMA – A prosecutor has decided to bring criminal charges against embattled Yakima County Coroner Jim Curtice in response to police allegations that Curtice stole illicit drugs from dead bodies, used them during work and lied about it.

It’s another blow for Curtice, who’s also facing recall charges and scrutiny over his office’s investigation of a disturbing jail death. He recently retained an attorney to sort through his various challenges.

“I’m representing him and getting up to speed on a host of different issues he’s dealing with,” Curtice’s attorney, Bill Pickett, said Friday. “My hope is I’ll help him sort through those issues and allow him to move forward.”

Ellensburg Prosecutor Aaron Reiman is charging Curtice with official misconduct, evidence tampering and making a false statement, according to a complaint obtained Friday by the Seattle Times. All three offenses are gross misdemeanors with maximum penalties of 364 days in jail.

Yakima police, who began investigating Curtice in August after he reported that someone had poisoned him with drugs, sent their allegations to Ellensburg in September to avoid any conflict of interest in Yakima. They said Curtice retracted his poisoning story after failing a polygraph test and admitted to snorting drugs in his office after taking them from dead people.

Curtice has been on paid leave from the coroner’s office since September, when he told police he would be checking into a rehabilitation center. Reiman initially sent Curtice’s criminal charges to Yakima Municipal Court in November but two of the offenses don’t exist in the city’s code, so the case was referred to Yakima County Court, where Reiman will refile soon, he said.

Curtice hasn’t been presented with the criminal charges, Pickett said.

The drug allegations are the main basis of the recall charges filed last month against Curtice by an attorney for three Yakima County Republican Party precinct committee officers.

The county’s elected commissioners, sheriff and auditor have all called on Curtice to resign. So have the Yakima Herald-Republic’s editorial board and the local GOP chair. Because Curtice is an elected official whose term runs through 2026, he can only be removed before that through a recall.

In Washington, officials can be recalled on grounds of “malfeasance, misfeasance, or violation of the oath of office.” Before a recall election can be called, the local prosecutor must accept the charges and write a ballot synopsis; a judge must determine the charges are legally sufficient; and a recall campaign must collect enough signatures from supporters.

A Yakima County prosecutor has prepared a ballot synopsis for the Curtice recall, so the charges will next head to a judge. A court hearing has been set for Jan. 10, said Zachary Stambaugh, attorney for the recall campaign.

Besides accusing Curtice of taking drugs from corpses and using them while on duty, the recall charges say he “often slept at his desk while at work and filed erroneous reports,” calling into question his investigations as coroner.

Such allegations could hold relevance for the case of Hien Trung Hua, who was booked into the Yakima County jail in 2023 during a mental health crisis and who died there after he was pepper sprayed, shackled, beaten and held prone by guards in a position that violated the jail’s own policy manual.

Curtice and the pathologist who conducted Hua’s autopsy labeled it a “natural” death, a county review found the guards acted appropriately and prosecutors took no action. But reporting by The Times last year prompted the pathologist to relabel it a “negligent homicide.” Rather than follow that recommendation, Curtice changed the manner of death to “accident.”

In October, Hua’s mother filed a $50 million tort claim accusing the county of killing her son and then trying to cover it up. The claim suggests that Curtice helped whitewash the death because he owed the county. Months before Hua died, Curtice had an altercation with sheriff’s deputies while intoxicated and in mental crisis but – unlike Hua – wasn’t jailed or charged.

Yakima police and county officials have given no indication that they plan to reopen their probes of Hua’s death, despite the pathologist’s homicide determination. Outgoing Gov. Jay Inslee and incoming Gov. Bob Ferguson have yet to weigh in, despite Hua’s cousin requesting state intervention.

But the state’s new Office of Independent Investigations is considering a review of the case and state Sen. Rebecca Saldaña is sponsoring jail oversight legislation that she says could help prevent similar deaths in the future.

Last month, the Herald-Republic’s editorial board questioned Hua’s death and called for an independent investigation. Yakima officials, the board wrote, “owe Hua’s family and the public” answers about why Hua died and “how they’re going to ensure that a tragedy like this doesn’t happen again.”