RICHMOND, Va. — A state government agency paid nearly $900,000 in public funds on legal services to defend a former hospital employee against criminal charges that were connected to the death of Irvo Otieno.
The Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services is the agency that oversees the public psychiatric facility Central State Hospital where Otieno died on March 6, 2023.
It’s also where Wavie Jones worked as a security employee.
Surveillance video from inside the hospital showed Jones, along with other staff and Henrico sheriff’s deputies, restraining Otieno on the floor of an admissions room for up to 12 minutes leading up to his death.
Prosecutors in Dinwiddie, who are also representatives of the state government, initially charged Jones with second-degree murder and later reduced the charge to involuntary manslaughter.
They accused Jones of forcefully pressing down on Otieno while he was in a dangerous prone position until he could no longer breathe.
But Jones’ defense attorneys with the Ram Law Firm rejected those claims. They presented expert witnesses who disputed the state medical examiner’s determination that Otieno died from positional and mechanical asphyxia with restraints.