Last Charges Dropped in Suffocation Death of Virginia Jail Detainee
On November 4, 2024, Commonwealth’s Attorney Amanda Mann in Virginia’s Dinwiddie County dropped charges against the last two of eight defendants charged in the death of Henrico County Jail detainee Irvo Otieno. That means no one will face trial for the 28-year-old’s fatal suffocation—while shackled—under a pile of 10 Henrico County Sheriff’s deputies and staffers at Central State Hospital (CSH) in Petersburg, the psychiatric lockup where the mentally ill detainee had been taken in March 2023.
As PLN reported, the state and Henrico County agreed in September 2023 to pay $8.5 million to settle claims arising from Otieno’s death and alleged earlier mistreatment at the jail, where surveillance video reportedly captured him naked and shackled in his cell when guards beat him and pepper-sprayed him in the face. Mann’s predecessor, Ann Cabell Baskervill, filed second-degree murder charges in March 2023 against seven deputies of Henrico County Sheriff Alisa A. Gregory and three CSH staffers, though Baskervill dropped two of the medical staffers from the case in June 2023 before resigning to study in Paris. [See: PLN, Apr. 2024, p.41.]
After Mann took over, she dismissed charges against five of the deputies, reducing those against two more deputies and the remaining CSH staffer, guard Wavie Jones; he was acquitted at the end of a four-day jury trial on October 3, 2024. Defense attorneys successfully argued that the 310-pound Otieno was off his medication and lashing out when Jones joined the effort to restrain him. The jury verdict was enough to convince Mann that she also couldn’t convict the last two deputies indicted in the death, Brandon Rodgers and Kaiyell Sanders, leading to dismissal of manslaughter charges against them.
Otieno’s death was ruled a homicide by “positional and mechanical asphyxia with restraints.” Mark Krudys, a Richmond lawyer on the legal team for Otieno’s family, said that Mann “did not appear to have spoken with witnesses that [were] called” to testify at Jones’ trial, slamming the prosecutor for “allow[ing] Irvo to be villainized even though he was a patient in a mental health crisis.” The dead detainee’s mother, Caroline Ouko, also criticized Mann’s “very lackluster and halfhearted effort.”
Sources: Washington Post, WTVR