Three Jefferson County Jail officers indicted in inmate death

(Update: Comments from DA, deputies on paid leave; sheriff statement)

Three Jefferson County Jail corrections officers have been indicted on criminally negligent homicide charges in the death of a 59-year-old Portland man in custody at the jail nearly a year ago, District Attorney Steven Leriche announced Thursday.

Corrections Corporal Anthony Joseph Hansen, 33, and deputies Michael Christopher Durkan, 53, and Cory Lucinda Skidgel, 42, were indicted Wednesday by a Jefferson County grand jury on the single count of criminally negligent homicide, which Leriche noted is a Class C felony with a maximum sentence of five years in prison and $125,000 fine.

Sheriff Jim Adkins had announced the death of James Eugene Wippel from a “serious medical issue” last April 26, saying it occurred as paramedics administered CPR. He said it was the first inmate death to occur at the jail.

Wippel had been arrested two days earlier by Warm Springs police on charges of heroin possession and delivery and methamphetamine possession. Adkins said he was taken to the Madras jail without incident.

The morning of April 26, Wippel told jail staff he was not feeling well and was seen by the nursing staff. Around 8:30 a.m., jail staff gave Wippel a conditional release and prepared him to be taken to St. Charles Madras, the sheriff said. But when Wippel again began showing signs of distress, sheriff’s staff called an ambulance.

Paramedics arrived at the jail and prepared Wippel for transport to the hospital but had to administer CPR, and efforts to save him were unsuccessful, Adkins said.

Adkins requested an autopsy and called in the Central Oregon Major Incident Team, led by detectives from the Redmond Police Department and Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office, to investigate the case.

Leriche told NewsChannel 21 he attended Wippel’s autopsy, which took place at the Oregon Medical Examiner’s Office in Clackamas County.

“After the autopsy was conducted, those results were provided to our Central Oregon Major Incident Team,” he said. “I recognized that there was a potential for criminal charges involving members of the sheriff’s office.”

Leriche said the case was referred to the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office for review and presentation to the grand jury, adding in a news release that Clackamas County DA John Foote “is one of the most respected and experienced district attorneys in Oregon.”

“When a crime has been committed by law enforcement, it is common practice for the district attorney’s office in the same jurisdiction to ask an independent district attorney’s office of the Oregon Department of Justice to review and handle the case,” Leriche wrote.

Leriche said Thursday, “I made decisions that I felt were important to uphold the appearance of fairness and to ensure the citizens of Jefferson County, or anyone else that were to look at this case, that the rule of law is the most important thing to the Jefferson County DA’s Office.”

“In this instance, the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office agreed to take on the case, which was presented to the Jefferson County grand jury over two days,” he added. He said the procedure is usually much shorter.

“A grand jury preceding is oftentimes an event that takes a matter of less than an hour or a few hours, so I know that the prosecutors who handled the case presented a pretty thorough presentation of evidence to the grand jury,” Leriche said.

The three jail workers are scheduled for arraignment April 19 in Jefferson County Circuit Court.

Leriche told NewsChannel 21 he could not speak to the specifics of the allegations involving the three jail employees at this time, and that they have not been arrested.

He said they ‘will be arraigned in the normal course of arraignment dates, probably within the next two weeks, and they will be asked to voluntarily appear in court.”

“We don’t consider them to be a flight risk or anything like that,” the district attorney said.

Adkins said in a statement late Thursday afternoon that the three deputies have been placed on paid administrative leave pending the completion of an internal investigation and/or prosecution.

He said Hansen was hired in February of 2015 as a corrections deputy, while Skidgel was hired in February 2017. Durkan was hired as a patrol deputy in 2015 and transferred to the jail in May of 2016.

“The death of Mr. Wippel is tragic, and I’m bothered that it happened at my facility with so many professionals involved, and I am heartbroken over these indictments, because these deputies are good and faithful deputies, who care very much about their jobs and the people they are charged with overseeing,” Adkins said.

But he added, “I have faith in our system and in the citizens who reviewed this case.”