Family of Man Killed by Cellmate Sues Prison Contractor

The family of a Vermont man who died after being attacked by his prison cellmate is suing the state’s former medical contractor over his death.

Jeff Hall, 55, was critically injured when Mbyayenge “Robbie” Mafuta struck him inside their cell at Northwest State Correctional Facility in December 2022. Hall later died from his injuries.

In a wrongful-death complaint filed last week in state civil court, Hall’s sister says employees for VitalCore Health Strategies did not properly assess Mafuta’s mental health before allowing him to return to the cell with Hall following a period of segregation.
Days before the attack, Mafuta — who has serious mental illness — had reported to prison officials that he was experiencing suicidal and homicidal impulses. He was placed on suicide watch in a segregated cell equipped with a camera.

Roughly 48 hours later, VitalCore employees told Vermont Department of Corrections officials that Mafuta was safe to return to general population, where he was assigned to a room with Hall. Mafuta “was able to process what happened last night and create a plan” to be in general population, a VitalCore therapist wrote in an email at the time, Seven Days reported in a September 6, 2023, cover story about Mafuta.

Hall’s family says the assessment of Mafuta’s mental state and risk to others was “inadequate” because it relied on Mafuta’s own assertion that he was feeling better. Two frontline VitalCore mental health workers are named as codefendants in the lawsuit.

“They just let him back into the general population, where he did exactly what he expressed he was going to do,” Brooks McArthur, the attorney representing Hall’s sister, Erica Albarelli, said in an interview this week.

VitalCore CEO Viola Riggin declined to comment.
The civil complaint cites many of the details that Seven Days previously reported, shedding little new light on the circumstances surrounding the fatal encounter. But McArthur said an experienced forensic psychiatrist has reviewed Mafuta’s medical records and concluded that the assessments he received were not up to par.

“This whole thing could have been avoided,” McArthur said.

The family isn't planning to sue the Department of Corrections, McArthur said.

Corrections Commissioner Nicholas Deml told Seven Days last year that the department had reviewed the incident, including decisions made by its health care contractor, and found no missteps. "There's really nothing in the record that would have led us to a different conclusion," Deml said last summer.

VitalCore no longer provides health care services to Vermont prisons. The Department of Corrections entered into a three-year contract with multinational health care corporation Wellpath in 2023.

Mafuta faces a pending charge of second-degree murder. His court-appointed attorneys have said they plan to pursue an insanity defense.