A Virginia judge has signed 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 grounded for about 11 minutes while being admitted to a hospital. state psychiatric hospital.

Dinwiddie Circuit Court Judge Joseph Teefy on Sunday approved the prosecutor’s request to nolle prosequi — or temporarily drop — the case against five sheriff’s deputies, court records show. The prosecutor could still seek to renew the charges, attorneys involved in the case said.

The move means that only three of the 10 Henrico County deputies and Central State Hospital employees initially charged with second-degree murder in Otieno’s video-captured death are now actively being prosecuted. sparked outrage and calls for mental health and law enforcement reforms. .

Otieno, a 28-year-old black man, had been taken into custody in a Richmond suburb amid a mental health crisis. He was initially transported to a private hospital but was later jailed 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 determined was “positional and mechanical asphyxia with restraint.”

Hospital video captured a group of officers and hospital staff restraining Otieno while he was in handcuffs and leg shackles.

Otieno’s mother and her lawyers, speaking at a news conference Monday, said they strongly disagreed with the prosecutor’s action. But they also said the prosecutor had assured them the decision was made for strategic reasons and that she planned to resume pursuing the charges.

Caroline Ouko, Otieno’s mother, called the move a “radical, reckless decision with major consequences.”

“We demand justice and nothing less,” she said, renewing her long-running 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 news release that her requests not to pursue the charges speak for themselves and that she would have no further comment.

In those motions, Mann wrote that her predecessor, an interim commonwealth’s attorney, planned the order of the defendants’ trials. The timing of the trials is strategically important, Mann wrote in each individual’s motion, adding that she “did not find the order to constitute sound and competent prosecutorial decision-making.”

Russ Stone, 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 has been our position all along that the prosecution went too far” by the first commonwealth attorney in the case, who “charged innocent people without adequate basis,” Stone said.

“And we appreciate the fact that the current Commonwealth’s Attorney has corrected this,” he said.

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 resigned – dropped criminal charges against two hospital employees last June.

The two deputies and a hospital worker 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, whose deputies helped restrain him.

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