A lawsuit alleges the Solano County Sheriff’s Office and a telecommunications company illegally profited from overcharging for video calls with people held in jail.
The contracted company, iWebVisit, and the Solano County Sheriff’s Office are defendants in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in Solano County Superior Court by family members of jail inmates.
The lawsuit alleges that iWebVisit continued to charge $9 for video calls despite a Federal Communications Commission rule limiting that charge to $5.70 per call starting April 6. It also alleges the Sheriff’s Office continued to take a cut.
Along with lowering fees, the FCC rule prohibits any profits — what the agency calls “commissions” — to counties contracting companies like iWebVisit.
Deborah Fernandez Crowder Music, a plaintiff in the suit, is 70 years old, and lives in her car in Vallejo. She struggles with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Video calls replaced in-person visits
Her son, Fenton Warren, 49, was her primary caretaker before being booked on murder charges in 2024 into a Solano County Jail in Fairfield, where in-person family visits were banned since 2014, per the county’s original contract terms with the video call company. Following the contract, Solano County established a “consolidated visitation center” with computer terminals to communicate with people behind bars.
Up to 35% of income from iWebVisit calls goes to Solano County Sheriff’s Office, according to a copy of the contract from a 2014 Board of Supervisors meeting.
The lawsuit estimates the Sheriff’s Office made $147,000 from that profit share in 2024-2025 — slightly more than a sheriff’s deputy’s salary.
The contract states that the ban on “non-official” in-person visits aimed to “decrease on-site visitations, reduce expenses, optimize staffing requirements” and to give “iWeb Visit an opportunity to recover its expenses of providing the Visitation Stations and thereafter make a profit from the fees charged for visits,” and possibly add “a new profit center to your facility.”
“Solano County and iWebVisit are violating the FCC regulations.”
— Rio Scharf, attorney representing plaintiffs
Alleged violation of FCC regulations
“Solano County and iWebVisit are violating the FCC regulations,” said Rio Scharf, an attorney representing plaintiffs.
According to the filing, that 15-35% payment constitutes an illegal tax, and the deal amounts to a “conspiracy … to restrict in-person human contact and force communication into channels they have monetized in order to increase their shared profits.”
The lawsuit alleges that iWebVisit has continued to share profits with the county even after the FCC order passed in April. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment by press time Saturday.
A spokesperson for the Solano County Sheriff’s Office said the agency could not comment since a lawsuit was filed.
“As is our practice with any pending litigation, the Solano County Sheriff’s Office cannot make any comment on this matter,” said Sgt. Rex Hawkins, who manages communications for the department.
Fernandez’ son, Warren, is in Stanton Correctional Facility in Fairfield, which was built in 2014, after the county moved family visitation exclusively to iWebVisit. Stanton CF was built without any family visitation space, according to Scharf.
Families struggle to stay connected
Since Warren’s booking, Fernandez, who lives on social security, has seen her son only through grainy, halting video calls on her phone for years. She lost her home a couple months ago, unable to keep up with rent. But being able to talk to her son has kept Fernandez alive.
“He’s always been there for me,” said Fernandez. These days, Warren hasn’t been sleeping.
“My son is so worried about me,” she said, since she lost her home and moved into her car. “He doesn’t know if I’m in the hospital, if I’m alive.”
Without a home, Fernandez is unable to power her continuous positive airway pressure machine, which she is supposed to use every four hours to help her breathe. But paying for calls is more important than rent at this point, said Fernandez. It’s a risk she takes to be able to hear her son’s voice.
Fernandez continued to pay $9 for every 30-minute call to iWebVisit until around May 19, when she and other plaintiffs saw their charges were lowered. None of the plaintiffs were ever notified of the change. The Solano County Sheriff’s website still lists the going rate of a video call at $9.
Some 21 jails around the country are under a contract with iWebVisit, according to the company’s website. Though iWebVisit removed the in-person family visit ban from contracts in 2017, Scharf said, no effort has been made to bring visitation back to Solano County.
According to its site, iWebVisit’s mission is to “enable agencies to realize the operational savings associated with reduced staff involvement, moving visitors off-site, eliminating inmate movement associated with the visitation process and providing increased safety for staff and inmates.”
“I just wanted to hug my son one last time.”
— Deborah Fernandez Crowder Music, plaintiff in the lawsuit
“I just wanted to hug my son one last time,” said Fernandez. Warren will likely be transferred to another facility to serve out the remainder of his sentence. With her declining health, Fernandez says the next video call could be her last.
“I don’t have any more money to put on my phone. Most likely, I will never see my son again,” she said.