Trials set for eight suspects in death of Irvo Otieno at Central State Hospital

DINWIDDIE – Trials for the eight people accused in the March death of a Henrico County man at Central State Hospital will begin next June and run through the end of 2024.

Each of the trials has been scheduled for five days, according to the calendar set Tuesday in Dinwiddie Circuit Court. Before they happen, however, pre-trial hearings will be held beginning next month through January.

The suspects – seven Henrico County sheriff’s deputies and a now-former CSH security officer – are each charged with second-degree murder in the suffocation death of Irvo Noel Otieno. Otieno, a 28-year-old man with a history of mental illness, died March 6 when the deputies and hospital security used their bodies to pin him to the floor of an intake unit where he was being admitted.

Otieno had been in police custody for three days when he died. He was originally picked up on suspicion of a neighborhood burglary, but due to his mental condition at the time, he was taken to a Henrico hospital and then straight to jail. Deputies were taking him to CSH for mental evaluation when he died.

Originally, 10 people were indicted, but charges were eventually dropped against two other security officers.

The trial dates are as scheduled:

• Dwayne Allen Bramble, 37 – June 3-7, 2024;

• Jermaine Lavar Branch, 45 – Aug. 5-9, 2024;

• Bradley Thomas Disse, 43 – Aug. 12-16, 2024

• Randy Joseph Boyer, 57 – Sept. 9-13, 2024;

• Wavie L. Jones, 34 – Sept. 30-Oct. 4, 2024;

• Brandon Edward Rogers, 48 – Oct. 7-11, 2024;

• Tabita Rene Levere, 50 – Oct. 28-Nov. 1, 2024; and

• Kaiyell Dajour Sanders, 30 – Dec. 2-6. 2024.

Disse, Boyer and Bramble have pre-trial hearings set for Nov. 1, Nov. 22 and Dec. 20, respectively. Sanders, Branch, Jones and Levere are set to reappear in court Jan. 10, 2024; and Rodgers on Jan. 31.

A lawyer for Otieno’s family released a statement late Monday praising interim commonwealth’s attorney Jonathan Bourlier for “diligently prosecuting” the cases. Bourlier took over as Dinwiddie’s top prosecutor in June following the resignation of Ann Cabell Baskervill, who originally began the proceedings after viewing hospital surveillance video of Otieno’s treatment and death.

Attorney Mark Krudys said Bourlier “appears to have marshalled the resources of his office to bring justice in this matter.”

It will be up to Dinwiddie voters next month if Bourlier will be the one to move ahead with the prosecutions. Baskervill previously announced plans to not seek re-election and left the job early to study international politics in Paris. Bourlier and Amanda Mann are battling on the November ballot to be her permanent successor.

Krudys’ vote of confidence in Bourlier is a reversal of a stance he and family co-counsel Ben Crump had earlier in the year when Bourlier was first appointed interim. They renewed a plea to the Justice Department for intervention in the prosecution, citing Bourlier’s relative inexperience in handling major cases.

“In our opinion, the newly appointed CA and his similarly new, small staff – with an ample caseload apart from the indictment of Mr. Otieno’s killers – are not adequately prepared to prosecute the eight defendants, all of whom have separate, experienced counsel,” Crump and Krudys wrote in a June 29 letter to the Justice Department.

Both Crump and Krudys are well-known civil-rights attorneys. While Krudys has focused his attention mostly in Virginia, Crump has become involved in several high-profile cases involving the deaths of Black citizens at the hands of law enforcement.

Otieno’s death, which drew comparisons to the 2020 death of George Floyd that sparked protests about racial inequity in justice, also caught the attention of civil-rights advocate Rev. Al Sharpton, who delivered the eulogy at Otieno’s funeral March 29 in Chesterfield County.

Last month, the family’s attorneys announced they had reached a settlement in a wrongful-death lawsuit they brought against Henrico Sheriff Alisa Gregory, Henrico County government and the commonwealth of Virginia, which operates Central State Hospital. The $8.5 million settlement was brokered in part by Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

Youngkin spokesperson Macaulay Porter told The Progress-Index at the time that the governor intervened “with the hope that doing so proactively and fairly might alleviate in a small way some of the suffering that Irvo’s mother and brother faced.” Youngkin has faced criticism from Democrats and others for inaction in upgrading Virginia’s behavioral-health system.

Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Suspects in Otieno death at Va.-run mental hospital have trials set