Former nursing home aide acquitted of attempted sex assault charge involving co-worker

A McKeesport man was found not guilty of an attempted sexual assault against a co-worker at a North Huntingdon nursing home.

Daniel Odu, 36, a former nursing aide at the Grove at Irwin, was charged with having improper sexual contact with a 19-year-old fellow employee in a resident’s bathroom on Feb. 6, 2021.

Jurors in Westmoreland County Court deliberated more than five hours before it returned an acquittal to one felony count of attempted sexual assault. The jury was unable to render verdicts on four other lesser related offenses — two charges each of aggravated indecent assault and indecent assault.

Jurors reported they were deadlocked 11-1 on the remaining counts, but did not indicate which position the lone holdout favored.

Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio declared a mistrial on the four unresolved charges and ordered prosecutors to retry Odu within four months.

Odu, according to court records, served 10 months in jail before he was released in 2022 on bail.

He will remain free on bail pending a retrial.

During the two-day trial, prosecutors contended Odu, a Nigerian immigrant who was legally in the United States, attacked his co-worker after they had previously exchanged a series of text messages before the alleged sexual encounter. Odu had started working at the nursing home 19 days before the incident.

Prosecutors said the now 22-year-old woman claimed she encountered Odu in the bathroom.

Police said Odu grabbed and groped the woman and asked her if she wanted to have sex before grabbing her by the neck and kissing her. Odu told police that his accuser had flirted with him in text messages, they had kissed several times and she consented to sexual contact.

“We kissed in the bathroom, real quick and again the next several days. I grabbed her butt and asked her. She said why not,” Odu testified.

In his closing argument, defense attorney Olanrewaju Olufemi Kukoyi of Carnegie said Odu’s accuser consented to sexual contact in her text messages and claimed police never investigated the case and instead filed charges without questioning his client.

“My client was oppressed because of this for three years,” Kukoyi said. “He comes to you today asking you set him free. Please let him go on with his life.”

Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Dupilka in her closing argument called Odu’s conduct a crime of opportunity.

“He tried to take advantage his time alone with her. It’s about the defendant taking care of his needs to try to have sex with her at work,” Dupilka said.

Odu’s accuser in 2022 filed a lawsuit against the Grove and a private Murrysville agency that provide staff to the nursing home, claiming it failed to conduct an adequate background check that could have prevented her alleged sexual assault.

The lawsuit is pending.