Inmate’s family angered over alleged prank call

EL CENTRO — May 9 was just like any typical Saturday for 16-year old Angelina Sky Dibble before she reportedly received a call from someone at Imperial County Jail, where her father has been incarcerated for the last two years.

She said the person making the 13-minute phone call to her residence in Pinellas County, Fla., at 11:22 a.m. local time asked her if she was related or a relative of Michael Dibble, and she replied that he is her father.

She was then told her father was dead.

That turned out to be a lie, but the teen didn’t know that at the time.

The call ended abruptly, so she called the number back that appeared on her caller ID. It turned out to be the number for the county jail, but in the 14-minute call back she was unable to get any information on her father.

The now-hysterical teenager called her mother, Crystal Valle-Najar, to tell her about the call from the jail, saying her father, her mother’s ex, was now dead.

Believing Michael Dibble was dead, Valle-Najar broke the news to his brother, Tim Dibble.

“That’s a big lie to me,” Tim Dibble said. “That’s not even a bad joke. This man needs to be relieved of his duties. You told my niece that my brother was dead.”

Tim Dibble said he called several people within the Imperial County Sheriff’s Office to inquire about his brother and was told his brother was very much alive, but he remained skeptical.

I said ‘ Hell, no,” he said. “I want to hear his voice.”

The two brothers were allowed to talk via speaker phone, and while Tim Dibble, at first, believed it did not sound like his brother, information was provided that only the two of them would know.

The extended Dibble family believe the phone call alleging Michael Dibble’s death, was a reprisal for him speaking to the media about the unsafe practices relating to COVID-19 at the county jail.

Michael Dibble, who is being held on an alleged sex offense, said that once he learned about the bogus phone call, he asked a corporal to look into the matter, and although the officer promised to do that, Dibble did not think he was being sincere.

Now, almost a month later, sheriff officials are expressing shock at the allegations being leveled by the Dibble family.

“This is a very serious allegation that needs to be thoroughly investigated,” said Chief Deputy Sheriff Thomas Garcia, who is in charge of county jail operations. “As well, I am not able to provide a response to your questions without any investigation of the information, review of the evidence and/or without potentially compromising a proper investigation.”

Sheriff Ray Loera in a text message also wrote that “no responsible law enforcement official would ever be OK with that type of activity.”

He also said the Sheriff’s Office wants to speak to the family, but the family said they no longer have any trust in his department.

Angelina Sky Dibble, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression, is not handling the alleged call from the jail too well, as she has even broken down at work, her mother said.

“It was not a funny joke,” Valle-Najar said.

The mom said after her daughter called, she phoned the county jail

and spoke to a sergeant, who was dismissive of the claim. She said the jail’s initial response is that it must have been another inmate making the call on the jail’s main line, but the sergeant reportedly had no explanation how this would be possible or how an inmate would have access to her daughter’s contact information.

“It’s not funny either way,” she said. “He has coronavirus all around him.” Tim Dibble said he knows what he would do if he ever came face to face with the person who made the alleged phone call.

“If I knew who it was I would beat the snot out of him,” he said. “They swept it under the rug because they really don’t care.”