The leading cause of death among people held in local jails is suicide. The family of Christopher Lapp, 62, learned that the hard way when he killed himself at Virginia’s Alexandria Adult Detention Center in 2021, while being held on federal bank robbery and armed carjacking charges. Almost three years later, on January 22, 2024, they reached a $1.75 million settlement with the jail’s contracted psychiatrist.

According to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia by Lapp’s ex-­wife, Lisa Lapp, both as executor of his estate and on behalf of their 16-­year-­old daughter, he had a history of mental illness that included bipolar and delusional disorders. Though Lapp had a Ph.D. in nuclear science and worked as a nuclear physicist, he suffered a “severe psychiatric decline” and psychotic break in 2018, culminating with an armed robbery of a Wells Fargo bank branch, after which he also stole a getaway car from the teller at gunpoint.

While in pretrial detention at the jail, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia; but due to this same condition, he denied being mentally ill and discounted the need for treatment. He was found incompetent to stand trial, however, and sent for mental health treatment to the Federal Medical Center in Butler, North Carolina. Eventually consenting to medication there, he was restored to competency and transferred back to the Alexandria jail before pleading guilty. But because of the risk that his care would again be discontinued, the federal judge presiding over his case, Thomas S. Ellis III, ordered him returned to Butner for continued treatment pending a sentencing hearing.

That was when “the prosecutorial and penal law systems collapsed for Dr. Lapp,” the lawsuit declared. Officials at Butner refused to take him back, citing a policy against holding prisoners who hadn’t been sentenced for “continuity of care purposes.” U.S. Marshals then refused to transport Lapp to the federal medical facility. Although various officials—including the Assistant U.S. Attorneys involved in Lapp’s prosecution as well as Judge Ellis—were informed of the failure to comply with the court’s order, no action was taken to get him out of this precarious limbo.

So Lapp remained at the Alexandria jail, whose contracted psychiatrist, Dr. Dean Inouye, saw him only once. He also did not conduct a complete evaluation. Nor did he request Lapp’s mental health records from Butner—which included an assessment that it was “imperative” Lapp continue his medication regimen “to prevent the likelihood of psychological decompensation.” Because of his condition, Lapp once again insisted that he didn’t need his antipsychotic medications. In what the suit called “an astounding departure from elementary professional practice,” Dr. Inouye then discontinued them. Two months later, on May 18, 2021, after visibly decompensating, Lapp fatally hanged himself in his cell with a bedsheet.

The lawsuit filed by his survivors raised wrongful death claims against the federal defendants under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2679, and against Dr. Inouye under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Although Inouye was employed by a private entity, the Alexandria Community Services Board, Plaintiffs alleged that he was “acting under color of law” by providing treatment to prisoners at the jail.

At a show-­cause hearing ordered by Judge Ellis in Lapp’s criminal case after his death, damning evidence was presented which exposed the gross lapses that culminated in Lapp’s preventable suicide—including Dr. Inouye’s admission that he should not have discontinued Lapp’s medication. Nevertheless, he and other Defendants moved for summary judgment in the civil case. But on December 13, 2023, the Court held summary judgment was not appropriate as to the deliberate indifference claim against Inouye. The Court also decided there was sufficient expert testimony to support a wrongful death claim. But it dismissed the federal Defendants, finding they did not breach a duty of care to Lapp under Virginia law. See: Lapp v. United States, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 222739 (E.D. Va. Dec.).

Dr. Inouye agreed to settle the case the following month, on January 22, 2024, for $1.75 million. Of that amount, $600,000 was allocated for attorney fees and $40,000 for costs, while the remaining $1,110,000 was placed in trust for Lapp’s daughter, J.L. Plaintiffs were represented by attorneys from Victor M. Glasberg & Associates in Alexandria. See: Lapp v. United States, USDC (E.D. Va.), Case No. 1 :23-­cv-­00248.   

Additional source: WTVR