Nassau officials identify Nikita Pertsev as inmate dead in apparent drug overdose

The 29-year-old jail inmate who county administration officials say died of an apparent overdose was identified as Nikita Pertsev of Brooklyn, police said Friday.

Pertsev fell ill just before 1 p.m. Wednesday at the Nassau County Correctional Facility in East Meadow, police said, and was pronounced dead at the hospital after having suffered "a medical episode."

A police investigation is ongoing and police have not released an official cause of death.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said Pertsev died of an apparent drug overdose and he vowed to conduct "a full and transparent investigation" in the incident. 

"It's always tragic when someone loses their life to addiction," Blakeman said in a statement Friday. "I have instructed our team to do a full investigation into how the contraband got into the facility, which is unacceptable." 

This is not the first incident involving illegal drugs in the county correctional facility.

Jail officials had seized drugs or drug paraphernalia 237 times between 2016 and 2019 including marijuana, prescription pills, heroin and other banned substances, Newsday reported in 2021. 

In February, the mother of a West Babylon man who died from overdosing on fentanyl in the county jail filed a $20 million lawsuit alleging the 28-year-old's "agonizing and wrongful" death happened because county officials ignored a drug contraband problem at the facility and didn't treat his addiction.

The lawsuit alleged county officials were aware "a virtual open door to contraband" existed at the East Meadow facility but didn’t do enough to fight the illegal drug trade before Kevin Rollins’ death in December 2018. 

The lawsuit followed a state Commission of Correction report in 2021 that found jail officials failed to do enough to purge drugs from inmate housing following "a pattern of drug-related contraband" activity, according to the Newsday story.

Pertsev's family was not immediately available for comment.

By Candice Ferrette

candice.ferrette@newsday.comcandiceferrette

Candice Ferrette covers Nassau County government and politics on Long Island. She has been a reporter at Newsday since 2011.