Comedian sues after claiming torture in San Mateo County jail
Ahmed Ahmed says a SFO arrest ended in a 21-hour jail ordeal, with deputies at Maguire Correctional Facility accused of beating, hooding and restraining him.
A lawsuit filed by comedian Ahmed Ahmed is putting San Mateo County’s jail practices under scrutiny after he says he was beaten, hooded and strapped to a chair at Maguire Correctional Facility following an arrest at San Francisco International Airport. The complaint says the episode began with a delayed 16-hour flight and a missed connection, then escalated into a custody case that left Ahmed in the Redwood City jail for about 21 hours without food, water or bathroom access.
Ahmed, an Egyptian-American comedian and actor based in Los Angeles, had just finished a four-month global tour when he arrived at SFO in September 2025. The suit says United Airlines gave stranded passengers hotel vouchers, but Ahmed could not secure a room. When he returned to the airport and sought help from a United employee, the employee allegedly threatened to call police, and San Francisco police arrested Ahmed minutes later.
From there, the complaint says, Ahmed was booked into Maguire Correctional Facility, which is operated by the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office. He alleges San Mateo County deputies physically assaulted him, attempted to pull down his pants, denied him basic necessities and held him in custody until about 9:30 p.m. the following day. The lawsuit says the treatment caused serious injuries, including broken bones and nerve damage, along with psychological trauma.
The filing names the County of San Mateo, the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office, former Sheriff Christina Corpus and unnamed deputies as defendants. It frames the case as a civil-rights and detention-abuse dispute, not a criminal prosecution, because Ahmed was not charged after the airport arrest.
The sheriff’s office said it was aware of the complaint and takes allegations of this magnitude seriously. Officials said an internal investigation conducted in 2025 disputes Ahmed’s account, though the agency did not publicly release those findings or detail what investigators concluded.
The case adds another high-profile challenge for the county’s jail system, where conditions inside Maguire Correctional Facility are now at the center of a claim that a routine airport arrest escalated into abuse after booking. For San Francisco and San Mateo counties, the lawsuit raises a direct question of oversight: what happens after SFO arrests leave the airport and enter the jail system across the Bay.
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