DINWIDDIE COUNTY, Va. – On Friday, June 2, Ann Baskervill, the current Dinwiddie County Commonwealth’s Attorney, submitted a letter of resignation to county administrators announcing her intention to step down from her position. Her last day will be June 20.
Baskervill will be leaving the country in August to study for a master’s degree in International Governance and Diplomacy at L’Institut des Études Politiques in Paris, France.
“This requires a dramatic leap of faith that I am called in spirit to take. I have long wanted to return to school to pursue public policy work, and the opportunity to do this at the global level rich with diversity will be a humbling but exciting adventure,” Bakservill wrote in her resignation letter.
Baskervill has served as the Dinwiddie County Commonwealth’s Attorney since 2014. She was reelected to the position in 2019.
In her resignation letter, she noted some of the highlights of her time in Dinwiddie, which included the prosectuion of Rusell Brown, the man charged with killing Virginia State Master Trooper Junius Walker, in 2016.
In an email to 8News, Baskervill emphasized that she accepted the offer of admission to L’Institut des Études Politiques on March 4 of this year. Just a few days later, on March 6, Irvo Otieno died at Central State Hospital in Dinwiddie while in the custody of the Henrico County Sheriff’s Department.
The case attracted national attention and Baskervill ultimately charged seven Henrico County Sheriff’s Deputies and three Central State Hospital employees with second-degree murder in connection to Otieno’s death.
Baskervill stated that her resignation was unrelated to the Otieno case, and she would not be available to comment on the case until next week.