A Virginia judge signed off on a prosecutor’s request to drop charges against five more people in connection with the 2023 death of Irvo Otieno, a young man who was pinned to the floor for about 11 minutes while being admitted to a state psychiatric hospital.
Dinwiddie Circuit Court Judge Joseph Teefy on Sunday approved the prosecutor’s motion to nolle prosequi — or effectively drop for now — the case against five sheriff’s deputies, according to court records. The prosecutor could still try to renew the charges, lawyers involved in the matter said.
The move means cases are now actively pending for just three of the 10 Henrico County deputies and Central State Hospital employees initially charged with second-degree murder in Otieno’s death, which was captured on video that sparked outrage and appeals for mental health and law enforcement reforms. .
Otieno, a 28-year-old black man, was taken into custody in suburban Richmond amid a mental health crisis. He was initially transported to a private hospital but was later arrested after law enforcement officials said he became combative. He was later transferred to the state mental health hospital south of Richmond, where he died in March 2023 from what a medical examiner found to be “positional and mechanical asphyxia with restraints.”
Hospital video captured a crowd of deputies and hospital staff restraining Otieno while he was handcuffed and had leg shackles.
Otieno’s mother and her lawyers, who spoke at a press conference on Monday, said they strongly disagreed with the prosecutor’s action. But they also said that the prosecutor assured them that the decision was made for strategic reasons and that she planned to renew the investigation into the allegations.
Caroline Ouko, Otieno’s mother, called the move a “radical and reckless decision with major ramifications”.
“We demand justice and nothing less,” she said, renewing her long-standing call for the U.S. Department of Justice to become involved in the case.
The prosecutor, Dinwiddie County Commonwealth’s Attorney Amanda Mann, did not respond to questions from The Associated Press. She said in a press release that her motions to nolle prosequi the charges speak for themselves and she would have no further comment.
In those motions, Mann wrote that his predecessor, an acting commonwealth’s attorney, had scheduled the defendants’ trial order. The timing of the trials is of strategic importance, Mann wrote in each individual’s motion, adding that she did not “consider the order to be sound and competent prosecutorial decision-making.”
Russ Stone, defense attorney for one of the five deputies, Dwayne Bramble, said Mann could choose to pursue the charges again. But he said such a development would be “extremely rare”.
“It’s been our position all along that it was prosecutorial overreach” by the first commonwealth’s attorney in the case, who “accused innocent people without an adequate basis,” Stone said.
“And we appreciate that the current commonwealth’s attorney has corrected this,” he said.
Defense attorneys for the other individuals — Jermaine Branch, Randy Boyer, Bradley Disse and Tabitha Levere — did not respond to phone messages seeking comment.
The prosecutor who initially handled the case — and has since stepped down — dropped criminal charges against two hospital employees last June.
The two deputies and a hospital employee with active cases have jury trials scheduled for October and December, according to online court records.
In a separate civil case, Otieno’s family reached an $8.5 million settlement with the state, county and sheriff’s department, whose deputies helped restrain him.
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