DINWIDDIE COUNTY, Va. -- Dinwiddie County’s top prosecutor is moving to essentially drop the cases against the remaining two people charged in the death of Irvo Otieno.
Henrico Sheriff’s Deputies Kaiyell Sanders and Brandon Rodgers are both currently charged with manslaughter in the Otieno case and are awaiting trial.
The Henrico man died last year while in custody at Central State Hospital, after being transported there from the Henrico County Jail in the midst of a mental health crisis.
But online court records show Dinwiddie Commonwealth’s Attorney Amanda Mann has filed to nolle prosse the charges against Sanders and Rodgers.
A nolle prosse is not an outright dismissal, meaning charges could technically be revisited in the future.
This comes one month after a Dinwiddie jury found a former Central State employee not guilty in Otieno’s death.
CBS 6 has reached out to Mann and the defense attorneys for Sanders and Rodgers late Friday. We will update this story once we receive a response.
RELATED COVERAGE: Family calls on Department of Justice to investigate circumstances of Irvo Otieno's death
Caroline Ouko and her attorney Mark Krudys spoke out last month urging the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the death of Ouko's son Irvo Otieno.
Last month, a jury found a former Central State Hospital employee not guilty of involuntary manslaughter in connection to Otieno's March 2023 death at the public psychiatric facility where he was taken during a mental health crisis. Surveillance video showed hospital staff and the Henrico County deputies who transported him there restraining Otieno on the floor of a hospital admission room for more than 10 minutes.
Otieno's family said Irvo died due to their actions. A jury disagreed.
"All we wanted was a fair trial where the resources on each side would be the same and there'd be similar vigor going forward so that the truth would percolate the surface. That did not occur," Krudys said at a Monday press conference outside the U.S. Courthouse in downtown Richmond. "We just feel that this case requires a far more aggressive, appropriately resourced response than the Dinwiddie County Commonwealth's Attorney is able to provide."
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TIMELINE: What we know about the events leading up to Irvo Otieno's death
On March 13, 2023, one week after Otieno's death, now former Dinwiddie Commonwealth's Attorney Ann Baskervill made a highly unusual decision to charge ten deputies and hospital staff member with second-degree murder without first obtaining an indictment from a grand jury. At the time, Baskervill said she took that action after watching surveillance video from Central State Hospital that she believed showed officers and workers smothering Otieno to death.
Baskervill ultimately resigned in June 2023 just three months after bringing the murder charges, leaving the cases in the hands of a different prosecutor.
Newly-appointed Dinwiddie Commonwealth's Attorney Amanda Mann led the prosecution in court and continued to argue that hospital worker Wavie Jones and others forcefully pressed down on Otieno's body while he was in a prone position until he could no longer breathe.
But prosecutors struggled to get a majority of witnesses to testify in support of that claim and Jones was found not guilty.
As for the remaining two defendants, what happens next isn't entirely clear.
Otieno's mother Caroline Ouko appeared unsatisfied with the prosecution's performance throughout the trial.
During the commonwealth's questioning of the defendant, she called prosecutors' cross-examination "weak."
Moments after the verdict was read aloud, Ouko shouted the words "miscarriage of justice" causing her to be removed from the courtroom by the judge.
"This is really our final cry to [the Justice Department]. This is our third letter to them. We think that it requires a response," Krudys said. "The time to get involved was 18 months ago, and then when five individuals were nolle prose we again said that is the time to get involved. The time is now, and it's quickly fleeting."
Following the not-guilty verdict, CBS 6 asked Mann whether she still planned to proceed with the remaining trials.
"This is not the outcome we sought and while we are disappointed, we respect the jury's decision," Mann wrote in a statement to CBS 6. "Given there are additional cases stemming from Mr. Otieno's death pending, it is not appropriate for me to comment further. It's important right now for information in these cases to be addressed in court, not the media and beyond."
This is a developing story. Email the CBS 6 Newsroom if you have information to share.
