Suspect in Shootout With Pa. Police Dies in Prison

WILKES-BARRE -- Otha Derrick Green, 29, who was shot seven times last week during a gunfight with police, died Tuesday at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility just more than an hour after being released from the hospital.

Green was released from Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Plains Township around 2:20 p.m., said prison Warden Joseph Piazza, and collapsed and died at the prison just after 3:30 p.m.

Piazza said the prison was still investigating the death, and the county coroner will perform an autopsy today.

Green was plagued with mental illness and was off of his antipsychotic medications when he engaged police in a gunfight on Oct. 25 at North Washington Street and George Avenue near the Kidz Korner day care.

Since his arrest, Green's wife, Vilena Green, said she was not allowed to see her husband in the hospital and Piazza called to inform her of his death around 4:30 p.m.

"Every time I went to the hospital," Vilena Green said, "they sent the security and said, 'You can't see him.'"

For Vilena Green, her husband's death is an unnecessary mystery. She was furious, she said, that doctors and officials would not update her on Otha Green's status.

"They wouldn't talk to us. They kept saying HIPAA Law," Vilena Green said, referring to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. "I said, 'I'm his wife.' Don't I have a right to know?"

Otha Green's attorney, Nanda Pallisery, was able to see his client, though, and said he was shocked to hear that Green had died.

"In the condition that I saw him in on Saturday," Pallisery said, "I didn't think there was any way that death was around the corner."

Geisinger spokesman Matt Van Stone said he was unable to comment on a patient after he has been released, but said the hospital has procedures in place to ensure that patients are in adequate shape when they leave.

Regardless, Vilena Green said the family was going to seek any retribution they could.

"Why did they even move him? That doesn't make sense. The doctor will tell you if he was well enough to move," she said. "A whole week and he survived, that should tell you something. --You're going to see this face again suing your ass."

McClatchy-Tribune News Service