$30,000 Settlement Reached in Virginia Jail Death That Put Richmond Lockup Under State Oversight
by Chuck Sharman
The Richmond City Justice Center remained under state oversight through May 20, 2026, after the Virginia Board of Local and Regional Jails (BLRJ) extended a compliance plan that the lockup had been operating under since a spate of four jail deaths in 2022 and 2023. A year earlier, in May 2025, Richmond Sheriff Antoinette Irving reached a settlement with the Estate of Steven Carey, the last of those to die, but the payout to his family totaled just $30,000.
Carey, 37, suffered from “severe mental health conditions,” including bipolar disorder, and he had a history of drug use, according to the complaint filed on his behalf. Jailed in February 2022 on charges including attempted murder, he pleaded guilty to firing a gun from a car and eluding police. He was awaiting trial on other charges in January 2023 when a fellow detainee watched him collapse and alerted guards that Carey was struggling to breathe. He was already dead by the time they arrived, the complaint averred, but guards administered Narcan anyway, to no avail. The death was later attributed to fentanyl poisoning.
The complaint, however, noted failures by jail staffers, some of whom were found to have falsified required hourly checks when the BLRJ investigated. Irregularities in documenting incidents and inspections were also found. The BLRJ agreed with Irving that understaffing was a big part of the problem and placed the jail under oversight to complete a two-year compliance plan. When sufficient improvements were not noted by the time the term expired in November 2025—191 vacant positions had been reduced only to 170, out of 385 total —the BLRJ extended it for another six months, according to WTVR in Richmond.
Meanwhile, with the aid of attorneys T. Noel Brooks and Jesse Baez of Brooks & Baez in Richmond, Carey’s sister, Carla Wade, filed suit as administrator of his Estate in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in 2024. Proceeding under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, she accused Sheriff Irving and her jailers of failure to protect Carey, in violation of the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The complaint also lodged a claim against the City for allowing the jail to become accustomed to conditions that violated the constitution, as provided under Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Svcs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978). Additional claims were also made for negligence and the prisoner’s wrongful death.
The complaint incorporated the BLJR compliance plan for the jail in its entirety, including policies and procedures to ensure that required safety checks are properly performed and internal audits are properly conducted. Irving moved to dismiss the case, but the district court denied that request on October 3, 2024.
When discovery ended just over three months later on January 13, 2025, Wade had collected depositions that she said supported her allegations that Irving and her jailers were at least negligent in allowing drugs into the lockup. But it was almost two more months before she moved to amend the complaint with citations to the depositions. By that time, it was March 3, and summary judgment deadline was just a week away. The next day, the district court denied the motion, urging Wade instead to put the evidence into a summary judgment motion.
The parties then proceeded to reach their settlement agreement. Under its terms, the $30,000 payout was split five ways, providing $5,464.66 each to Carey’s three children: adult daughter Savannah Carey, minor son J.C. and minor daughter L.M. Another $10,000 went to Brooks & Baez for attorney’s fees. The remaining $3,606 went to Plaintiff to reimburse Carey’s funeral expenses. The district court granted its approval to the settlement on May 21, and the case was dismissed on June 20. See: Wade V. Irving, USDC (E.D. Va.), Case No. 3:24-cv-00291.
While Irving may have gotten off relatively lightly with a five-figure payout in the civil case over Carey’s death, repercussions continued to haunt her jail for almost a year longer, in the form of BLRJ monitoring of its compliance plan. It was unclear whether the monitoring period was extended again, but PLN will continue to update those developments as they are available.
No suit has reportedly been filed over any of the other jail deaths. As it did after Cheney died, the BLRJ cited the jail for supervision violations in the deaths of Nina Hill and Vance Holloway on November 14 and December 12, 2022, respectively; the name of a third detainee who died earlier in 2022 was not released. Two months after Carey became the fourth jail victim in January 2023, there was a fifth, identified by WTVR as Jesse Jayveon Trent.
Wade told the news station that her family initially welcomed news that Carey was in jail because “[w]e ultimately thought he was safer in there than he was on the streets.” Now she said they realize the truth: “We have no idea what was happening behind those walls.”
Additional source: WTVR
As a digital subscriber to Prison Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.
Already a subscriber? Login