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Virginia's forensic commitment gap: how two escorted passes became a flight to Tajikistan

8/23/2026

Forensic not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity commitments replace criminal incarceration with involuntary psychiatric confinement, but the state's custody obligation travels with the patient.

That obligation failed twice for Abdulloi Doniyor Toshpulodzoda, a Tajik national held at the Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute in Falls Church after being acquitted by reason of insanity in the killing of his landlord.

He was authorized to leave on two escorted passes and did not return: the second ended with a flight to Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

The first outing brought Toshpulodzoda to the Tajik embassy in Foggy Bottom, Washington D.C., where he obtained a passport. The second brought him to an Alexandria apartment.