Richardson Dangleben Jr. was arraigned Wednesday on a superseding indictment in the 2023 shooting death of V.I. Police Detective Delberth Phipps Jr., entering a plea of not guilty as more than a dozen VIPD officers who attended in support of their slain colleague watched from the public gallery at V.I. District Court on St. Thomas.
Dangleben, shackled at the waist and wearing a beige prison uniform, was led into the courtroom through a side door by a U.S. Marshal who remained standing behind him throughout the proceeding. A slight man with a graying beard and locs concealed under a white headwrap, he sat in silence after quietly conferring with his attorney, Public Defender Matthew Campbell, for about five minutes before the arraignment.
After disposing with formalities — asserting his right to a speedy trial, which is set for Oct. 6, and issues of discovery deadlines — Campbell made a strenuous argument for detaining Dangleben on St. Thomas and not in Puerto Rico as his trial date approaches.
The urgency of Campbell’s appeal concerns the fact that he is suddenly defending a capital murder case after the Justice Department announced in February that, under orders from the new Trump administration, it would pursue the death penalty against Dangleben more than a year after saying it would not.
In addition, Campbell filed a motion Tuesday asking the court to compel local detention, noting the difficulties of providing effective counsel when it involves time-consuming travel from St. Thomas to Puerto Rico for in-person visits with Dangleben. Complicating matters, a learned counsel — a specialist in death penalty cases — appointed to the case in February lives in the Washington, D.C. area and faces even steeper expenses and travel times.
United States Magistrate Judge Alan Teague, who presided over the arraignment, said he could not rule on Campbell’s motion without first consulting District Court Chief Judge Robert Molloy, who is presiding over the case. However, within an hour of the proceeding’s conclusion Molloy issued an order that Dangleben be detained on St. Thomas until after omnibus and evidentiary hearings scheduled for July 23-25.
While stressing that “the Court is mindful not to unduly interfere with the Marshals Service’s duty and responsibility to manage the transport of persons in custody in and out of the Virgin Islands,” Molloy noted that as a defendant in a capital case, Dangleben is afforded additional statutory and constitutional protections.
“The Court recognizes that although the Virgin Islands lacks a federal detention center, the U.S. Marshals Service, under certain circumstances, may arrange for short-term detention of detainees and prisoners at the Virgin Islands Bureau of Corrections facility located in St. Thomas,” Molloy wrote in his two-page order. “In view of the omnibus and evidentiary hearings currently scheduled for July 23-25, 2025, the Court finds that easier access to counsel to prepare for such hearings will help protect Defendant’s right to effective assistance to counsel.”
Molloy added in a footnote that the court will revisit any request for Dangleben to be housed on St. Thomas after July 25 “at a later time.”
At the arraignment Wednesday morning, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Conley, chief of the Criminal Division for the District of the Virgin Islands, said his office was “obviously willing to be as accommodating as possible,” but noted that Dangleben was scheduled to be flown back to the federal detention center in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico as soon as that afternoon because he requires medical care.
However, Campbell quickly pushed back on that notion.
“The idea that he needs to be returned to Guaynabo is laughable if it wasn’t so tragic,” Campbell told the judge. “The idea that he is going to get medical care is not true. It’s simply false.”
In fact, despite numerous requests, the latest as recently as May, Dangleben has received no meaningful medical care in the 23 months he has been detained in Puerto Rico, Campbell said.
When Dangleben, 53, made his first court appearance on July 7, 2023, he was in a wheelchair with multiple gunshot wounds to his legs and hands and recovering from surgery to reattach his thumb. He had shrapnel injuries to his face and eyes to the point that “you couldn’t see the whites of his eyes, they were red,” Campbell told the judge. “I’m sure he sustained some eye damage, but we won’t know,” because he has not received any postoperative care. Nor has he received any physical therapy, so his thumb joint is now fused, he said.
Conley responded that this was the first time his office was hearing of the medical issues, “and we’re happy to assist any way we can.”
The superseding indictment, filed on April 16, includes 13 counts: first degree murder; attempted first degree murder; two counts of first degree assault; two counts of third degree assault; use of a firearm during a crime of violence resulting in death; two counts of discharge of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence; possession of firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime; possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number; receipt of a firearm while under indictment for a crime punishable by more than one year imprisonment; and wearing body armor during the commission of a violent crime.
Additionally, the indictment includes a “notice of special findings” under 18 U.S. Code § 3591 and 3592, which concerns mitigating factors to consider in determining whether a death sentence is justified, including being over the age of 18 and intentionally killing a person in an act of violence.
Phipps, 42, was responding to a 911 call of a man carrying a firearm and wearing a bulletproof vest in the vicinity of Hospital Ground near “Jah Yard” just before 8 a.m. on July 4, 2023, when he was shot and killed, according to police reports at the time. Dangleben was taken into custody the same day. He had been out on bail after he was released to the custody of his parents for the first-degree murder of Keith A. Jennings, 68, in Hospital Ground five months earlier. That case is being heard in V.I. Superior Court, with a trial date of Oct. 21.
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