Westmoreland County District Attorney’s Office said it will no longer pursue sexual assault charges against a former aide at a North Huntingdon nursing home.
A jury in March found Daniel Odu, 36, of McKeesport not guilty of the attempted rape of a 19-year-old co-worker at the Grove at Irwin in 2022, but failed to reach a verdict on four other counts, including two felony charges of aggravated indecent assault and two misdemeanor offenses of indecent assault.
As a result, a mistrial was declared and prosecutors weighed a potential retrial for Odu on the remaining four counts.
Assistant District Attorney Krista Koontz, during a pretrial hearing Tuesday, said the case against Odu will be dropped.
“The victim in the case does not wish to move forward and testify,” Koontz told Westmoreland County Common Pleas Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio.
During two-day trial, prosecutors contended Odu, a Nigerian immigrant who was legally in the United States, attacked his co-worker after they previously had exchanged a series of text messages. Odu had started working at the nursing home 19 days before the incident, witnesses said.
His accuser claimed she was grabbed and groped in a patient’s bathroom and after she had rebuffed Odu’s sexual advances. Odu claimed he and his accuser flirted during the previous days and that she consented to sexual contact.
Odu served 10 months in jail following his arrest but has been free on bail since 2022.
Defense attorney Olanrewaju Kukoyi at trial criticized the police investigation and argued the accuser’s claims could not be substantiated.
“It’s a relief that it’s over,” Kukoyi said of the prosecution’s decision to end the case against Odu.
Rich Cholodofsky is a TribLive reporter covering Westmoreland County government, politics and courts. He can be reached at rcholodofsky@triblive.com.