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Pineiro, Aaron Thomas
Status: active
Profile written August 16, 2026
This profile reflects positional accountability — this individual held the leadership roles shown during the dates shown, during which the listed deaths or lawsuits occurred. Inclusion does not constitute a legal finding of personal culpability for any specific incident.
Tenure Summary
Aaron Thomas Pineiro began his Georgia Department of Corrections career as a correctional officer at Valdosta State Prison in 2007, later returning as a behavioral health counselor there in 2015. After a 2016 posting as behavioral health counselor supervisor at Georgia State Prison, he served as deputy warden at Georgia State Prison in 2017–2018 and at Valdosta State Prison in 2019–2021. GPS position records then place him in facility-lead roles: Warden 1 at Coastal State Prison in 2022, Warden 2 in 2023, and a Warden entry from Jan. 1 to June 15, 2024. The records also show a concurrent Warden 2 entry at Phillips State Prison from Jan. 1 to June 15, 2024, followed by a continuous Warden posting at Phillips from June 16, 2024 onward; a 2025 record lists him as Warden 2 at Phillips.
GPS records attribute 84 deaths to the leadership-tenure facilities under Pineiro: 40 at Coastal State Prison, 32 at Phillips State Prison, and 12 at Valdosta State Prison. No Georgia State Prison deaths appear in the structured death totals for Pineiro.
What happened on their watch
Georgia State Prison — behavioral health supervisor, 2016; deputy warden, 2017–2018
The structured death totals do not include Georgia State Prison during Pineiro’s time there. Later reporting by The Georgia Virtue describes allegations from David Dwayne Cassady that GDC in 2018 deemed his sexual-assault claim unfounded, returned the alleged assailant to Cassady’s cell block, and that a later physical assault left Cassady’s partner stabbed nine times. Those are allegations from a news account, not adjudicated facts.
Valdosta State Prison — deputy warden, 2019–2021
GPS records attribute 12 deaths to Valdosta State Prison during Pineiro’s deputy-warden tenure. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Georgia Prison Homicides Investigation, three of those deaths were stabbings: Prince Blige (Feb. 12, 2020, stab wound to torso), Orvonta Casmir Tillman (June 16, 2020, multiple sharp force penetrating trauma to the thorax), and Bobby Lane Carpenter (Sept. 9, 2020, stab wound to the chest).
GDC’s own mortality coding, obtained by the UCLA Law Behind Bars Data Project through an open records request, classified five other deaths during that period as suicide: Michael Lee Vaughn (Jan. 11, 2020), Shannon Small (Sept. 1, 2020), Brandon Omar Weaver (Dec. 3, 2020), Johnny Claude Mitchell (Dec. 5, 2020), and Stanley Ward (June 6, 2021). The same GDC coding classified Ralph Bell Johnson (April 16, 2021), Norman Leon Davis (Jan. 25, 2021), Ray Starlin Nichols (Jan. 23, 2021), and Gary Thomas Keown (Nov. 14, 2020) as natural deaths.
Coastal State Prison — Warden, 2022–June 15, 2024
GPS records attribute 40 deaths to Coastal State Prison during Pineiro’s warden tenure. In the deaths sample, the only Coastal decedent with a detailed cause notation is Salomon Andres Ramirez, whose Oct. 20, 2023 death is listed in the AJC homicide investigation as an apparent homicide. The other named Coastal decedents in the sample carry no detailed cause notes in the provided records.
Phillips State Prison — Warden, 2024–present records
GPS records attribute 32 deaths to Phillips State Prison during Pineiro’s warden tenure; death records identify him as Warden 2 at Phillips through at least May 3, 2026. Gwinnett County Coroner / GBI Medical Examiner reports list homicide as the manner for several deaths during this period, including David E. Fambro (July 24, 2024), Timothy Hurley (Sept. 8, 2024), Brandon Lashaun Mincey (Oct. 11, 2024), Corey Madison Cochran (Dec. 18, 2024), and Jody Stokes (Jan. 13, 2025). Suicide is recorded for Nile Baptiste Young (Oct. 7, 2024), Christopher Blake Hines (March 24, 2025), and Terry Nichols (Oct. 14, 2025).
The family of Leroy Brooks (Dec. 9, 2024) contests the handling of his death, according to the Gwinnett County Medical Examiner report. The medical examiner declined jurisdiction and no autopsy was performed; the prison physician was expected to sign the death certificate as natural, but the family told the ME it “can’t be natural causes,” and the cause remained unknown/pending. GBI DOFS records also show that, as of July 2026, reports remained unfinalized for Hines and Young — sixteen and twenty-one months after their deaths, respectively.
Litigation
GPS’s litigation index lists the following federal actions in connection with Pineiro’s tenure. None of the captions names Pineiro, and the provided records do not identify him as a named party.
- Young v. Smith, 6:17-cv-00131 (GASD), filed Oct. 2, 2017; terminated March 16, 2021.
- Mosley v. Caraviello, 6:19-cv-00100 (GASD), filed Nov. 4, 2019; terminated May 6, 2021.
- Daker v. Ward, 7:20-cv-00113 (GAMD), filed June 11, 2020; terminated Nov. 3, 2021.
- Brewer v. Chambers, 4:22-cv-00264 (GASD), filed Nov. 9, 2022; terminated July 25, 2024.
- Browner v. Brown, 4:23-cv-00167 (GASD), filed June 21, 2023; pending.
- Doe v. Georgia Department of Corrections, 1:23-cv-05578 (GAND), filed Dec. 6, 2023; pending.
- Patrick v. Moore, 4:24-cv-00242 (GASD), filed Oct. 24, 2024; pending.
- Daker v. Oliver Filing Restriction Per 59 Order, 1:25-cv-03191 (GAND), filed June 6, 2025; terminated March 30, 2026.
- Mckenzie v. Oliver, 4:26-cv-00108 (GAND), filed April 28, 2026; pending.
Sources
- GPS structured personnel, mortality, litigation, and intel records.
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution — Georgia Prison Homicides Investigation; prison conditions and staffing investigations.
- Gwinnett County Coroner / GBI Medical Examiner ORR production for Phillips State Prison in-custody deaths, received and OCR’d June 26, 2026.
- GBI Division of Forensic Sciences records and ORR responses concerning death investigations and testing delays.
- GDC-released January 2025 mortality data (official PDF).
- UCLA Law Behind Bars Data Project custodial mortality dataset, obtained from GDC via open records request.
- CourtListener and federal court docket records for the litigation listed above.
- The Georgia Virtue — reporting on Georgia State Prison allegations.
Positions Held
| Title | Facility | Tenure |
|---|---|---|
| WARDEN 2 | PHILLIPS STATE PRISON | 2024-01-01 → present |
| Warden | PHILLIPS STATE PRISON | 2024-06-16 → present |
| Warden | COASTAL STATE PRISON | 2024-01-01 → 2024-06-15 |
| WARDEN 2 | COASTAL STATE PRISON | 2023-01-01 → 2023-12-31 |
| WARDEN 1 | COASTAL STATE PRISON | 2022-01-01 → 2022-12-31 |
| DEPUTY WARDEN | VALDOSTA STATE PRISON | 2019-01-01 → 2021-12-31 |
| DEPUTY WARDEN | GEORGIA STATE PRISON | 2017-01-01 → 2018-12-31 |
| BEHAVIORAL HLTH COUNSELOR SPV | GEORGIA STATE PRISON | 2016-01-01 → 2016-12-31 |
| BEH HEALTH/COUNSELOR (WL) | VALDOSTA STATE PRISON | 2015-01-01 → 2015-12-31 |
| Correctional Officer | VALDOSTA STATE PRISON | 2007-01-01 → 2007-12-31 |
Lawsuits as defendant
| Case # | Court | Filed | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4:26-cv-00108 | GAND | 2026-04-28 | pending |
| 1:25-cv-03191 | GAND | 2025-06-06 | terminated |
| 4:24-cv-00242 | GASD | 2024-10-24 | pending |
| 1:23-cv-05578 | GAND | 2023-12-06 | pending |
| 4:23-cv-00167 | GASD | 2023-06-21 | pending |
| 4:22-cv-00264 | GASD | 2022-11-09 | terminated |
| 7:20-cv-00113 | GAMD | 2020-06-11 | terminated |
| 6:19-cv-00100 | GASD | 2019-11-04 | terminated |
| 6:17-cv-00131 | GASD | 2017-10-02 | terminated |
Deaths attributed during tenure
84 people died at facilities under Pineiro, Aaron Thomas's leadership.
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