Three Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office jail employees are accused of criminally negligent homicide in the death last year of a 59-year-old inmate who was being held on drug charges.

A grand jury Wednesday indicted jail deputies Michael Christopher Durkan, 53, and Cory Lucinda Skidgel, 42, and jail corporal Anthony Joseph Hansen, 33, on one count each of criminally negligent homicide, a felony with a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

The charges relate to the death of James Eugene Wippel, 59, of Portland, who died April 26 while in custody in the Jefferson County jail. It was the first death recorded at the jail.

The Central Oregon Major Incident Team, including Redmond Police officers and Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office deputies, began investigating after Wippel’s death.

Jefferson County District Attorney Steven LeRiche referred the results of the investigation to the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office to review and prosecute. It is common practice for cases involving local law enforcement to be handled by an outside county, LeRiche said.

“Jefferson County is a smaller county in population, and we know each other. I know many of those corrections deputies,” LeRiche said Thursday. “When there are criminal allegations against them, you are heavy hearted. But it’s precisely because of those types of feelings and concerns the public might have that I appointed Clackamas County to make the decision and to prosecute the case.”

LeRiche declined to comment on the details of the case, including the cause of Wippel’s death in jail and what actions led to the criminally negligent homicide charges against the three jail employees.

Jefferson County Sheriff Jim Adkins said Thursday he was bothered by what happened at his facility.

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

Wippel was arrested April 24 in the parking lot of the Indian Head Casino in Warm Springs on suspicion of possession of methamphetamine and possession and delivery of heroin.

According to court records, a Warm Springs Police officer spotted Wippel inside a black Mercedes smoking methamphetamine out of a large glass pipe. Wippel told the officer he had “about a gram,” of heroin inside his backpack. When he was booked, jail staff found a syringe filled with a dark brown liquid and a small baggie with three large black heroin rocks inside the backpack, according to court records. In addition, the jail staff found a Ziploc bag filled with small pill pouches and $4,408 in cash.

He was booked into jail without incident, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.

But two days later, Wippel said he felt sick and was seen by the jail’s nursing staff. Later that morning, Wippel was scheduled to be sent to the hospital. He again started showing signs of distress, and jail staff called for an ambulance. Paramedics arrived and performed CPR, but their efforts were unsuccessful and Wippel died, the sheriff’s office reported at the time.

The Jefferson County jail employs 26 positions, including 13 deputies and five part-time nurses. Three to four deputies are on duty at a time, according to the sheriff’s office.

Hansen served in the jail since he was hired as jail deputy in February 2015. Skidgel was hired as a jail deputy in February 2017, and Durkan was hired in April 2015 as a patrol deputy and transferred to the jail in May 2016.

The three jail employees are scheduled to be arraigned in Jefferson County Circuit Court on April 19.

Before his arrest and death, Wippel had a lengthy criminal history in Oregon dating back to 1987, including convictions for theft, forgery, robbery and drug possession, according to court records.

Wippel’s death was the first involving Central Oregon jail deputies since December 2014, when Edwin Burl Mays III died of a methamphetamine overdose in the Deschutes County jail. Surveillance video showed Deschutes County jail deputies mocked Mays and ignored his declining medical condition over the roughly four hours between his booking into the jail and being declared dead in a holding cell. Mays’ family filed suit against the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office for more than $15 million. The sheriff’s office settled the suit in December 2016 for $1.025 million.

— Reporter: 541-617-7820, kspurr@bendbulletin.com