Family sues after nuclear physicist’s death in Virginia jail

By MATTHEW BARAKAT
Associated Press

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) — The family of a nuclear physicist who died by suicide in a Virginia jail is suing the U.S. government after his psychotropic medicine was discontinued and he was denied admission to a federal medical prison. The lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on behalf of Christopher Lapp’s 16-year-old daughter alleges that a series of errors by prison officials and others led to Lapp’s 2021 death. Lapp was being held at the Alexandria jail, even though a judge had ordered him sent to the federal medical prison center in Butner, North Carolina, where physicians had medicated him and restored his mental health. Lapp had pleaded guilty to robbing a bank in Great Falls, Virginia, during what Lapp’s family described as a psychotic break.