Month: February 2004

Richmond, Virginia – a history lover’s dream. Did you know the city introduced America to the first canned beer, the Marlboro Man and Pat Benatar? n “Pat Benatar? No way! I’m a huge Pat Benatar fan,” gushes history buff Rob Bell, surprised to learn that the songstress behind “Love is a Battlefield” began her music career at a Richmond club called The Tobacco Company. “My musical tastes froze in high school. I used to know all those stupid songs,” he says. n Although Bell occasionally finds time to relive his teenage years by tuning to an ’80s station on satellite radio, as Albemarle’s delegate to the Virginia General Assembly he spends more time reflecting on Richmond’s more distant past.

“Did you know the General Assembly is the oldest legislative body in the Western Hemisphere?” he asks. “The second-oldest in the world. If the House of Commons in England would just take a little break, we’d have it.

“I hold the same seat as Thomas Jefferson, the seat he held when he voted to secede from the crown,” he continues, sounding like a 7th grader who just shot hoops with Shaq. “The guy next to me is in Patrick Henry’s seat. The guy behind me is in James Madison’s seat. Someone here sits in George Washington’s seat.

“I mean I’m just some guy. I shop at Food Lion.”

Virginia’s representatives speak proudly of their “citizen legislature,” where each year regular people leave their jobs and families, go to Richmond and craft the rules and policies that will govern the Commonwealth for years to come. Until recently, the annual trip to Richmond resembled a two-week getaway for legislators to party as hard as they worked. Now, longtime members say aggressive partisanship is ripping away Virginia’s good ol’ boy network, as a new generation of upright, ambitious young people look to make the leap from Virginia to Washington, D.C.

Mitch Van Yahres, a Democrat who has held Charlottesville’s 57th District seat for more than 20 years, says politics defined as “the art of compromise” is lost on newer legislators trying to make a name for themselves with fierce partisan stances. In the old days, Van Yahres says, State politics was more gentlemanly.

“We used to fight, but we put it on a high plain,” he says. “Now, it’s difficult to have give-and-take because we have a lot of ideologues. They want it their way or no way.”

Bell, a 36-year-old Orange County prosecutor, is one of the young climbers. Sitting in Jefferson’s old seat, he’s situated on the perfect stepping stool. When he was elected in 2001, Bell replaced Paul Harris, who resigned to take a position in the Justice Department. George Allen won the 58th seat four times before being elected governor in 1994. In 2001 Allen became a U.S. Senator who some say could run for the Presidency.

“We’ll see,” says Bell, when asked about seeking higher office. “I think I’m doing good work right now. If I do a good job at this level, people will notice.”

People are already noticing.

Ask “Who is Rob Bell?” and the most frequent answer you get, from high school chums to foes across the aisle, is an “extremely intelligent” fellow. His detailed grasp of Virginia law has earned him a place on powerful House committees, and in his first two years he pushed through a series of bills that closed some loopholes in the State’s drunk driver laws. This year, he’s been even more successful—the House of Delegates has passed several new bills (now awaiting their fate in the Senate) that would make Virginia one of the toughest states on drunk drivers.

With his reputation for reflection, Bell strikes many observers as something of a nonideological anomaly among Virginia Republicans. In recent years, voters have elected more GOP hard-liners, who take strong conservative stances on taxes and social issues. And since Republicans control both the House and Senate, many of these hard-liners can get their way without listening to opposing arguments—without the inconvenience of compromise.

All of which presents Bell with a dilemma. Albemarle elected him for his thoughtful, moderate conservatism. But his party’s hard-line leadership isolates other members who don’t march in lockstep. As his colleagues veer towards deep spending cuts and Christianist legislation, Albemarle voters might want to know: Who is the real Rob Bell?

County voters send mixed signals

Conventional wisdom paints Albemarle as the conservative suburbs to Charlottesville’s liberal urban center. This is only partially true.

Eric and Nancy Haussmann live with their two teenage sons in a cul-de-sac at the end of Buck Ridge Lane, which winds into the foothills four miles north of Free Union. Inside their two-storey home, framed inspirational Bible verses and hundreds of books line the walls. “We both love reading,” says Eric. “It’s what we spend our money on.”

The Haussmanns are like many voters in Albemarle County—white, Christian, upper-middle class, well educated, active in the community. The Haussmanns got to know Bell when he was leader of their son’s Boy Scout troop, and Eric introduced Bell to a crowd at Hollymead Elementary School when he announced his candidacy for the first time.

The Haussmanns generally don’t like to talk politics and religion among friends, but with a little coaxing Eric admits to leaning Republican. “But I will deviate from the party line,” he’s quick to add, “depending on the person who’s running.” Nancy holds conservative views but claims no party affiliation, which the St. Louis, Missouri, native attributes to her “independent-minded Midwestern streak.”

In fact, Albemarle’s voting record indicates a constituency willing to cross party lines—perhaps its growth rate makes for an every-changing voter base [see sidebar, page 16]. Citing counties like Henrico and Greene—which are growing faster than Albemarle but vote strictly Republican year after year—Bell attributes Albemarle’s shifting political climate not just to growth but to the County’s well-educated and well-read voters.

“The amount of public discourse here is really high. There’s a lot of headlines about local politics,” Bell says.

“The good thing about Bell’s district is that it’s pretty diverse,” says Ken Stroupe, a former Allen aide who works at UVA’s Center for Politics. “It’s not as far right of center as the rest of the House of Delegates. The interests of his constituents [are] going to be mixed.”

Bell comes with an ideal resumé for political success in Albemarle. As a Navy brat, he moved often while growing up—born in Palo Alto, California, with stints in Hawaii (while his father fought in Vietnam), Texas, Mississippi and Virginia.

“I always thought of myself as the middle of the middle class,” says Bell. “I remember the ’70s as the height of good-intentioned government paternalism. I was always resentful when I thought politicians were talking down to people who were my family or neighbors.

“I didn’t know higher society until I came to UVA,” Bell says. “I wasn’t very impressed.”

Bell says he has been interested in politics for as long as he can remember, an interest he carried to UVA in 1984. “He was the kind of guy who was always reading a newspaper,” says Bell’s college friend Brian Altmiller, now a patent attorney in Reston. “That’s unusual for a 19-year-old. Rob was always taking things to the absolute limit. In his fourth-year history class he turned in a 106-page thesis—not because he had to, but because he wanted to do it right.

“I’m afraid we were kinda square,” Altmiller confesses.

The secret is out—Bell was a nerd. “We had our share of dates, and there were a few nights when one of us drank more than he should have,” Bell says in his defense. “But we weren’t studs or anything. I’ve never done a beer bong.”

Bell eschewed UVA’s college Republicans and volunteered instead to get out the vote for local, State and national candidates. “I had no interest in student council I hate to say they were sophomoric because they were actually sophomores,” says Bell. “This was the Reagan era. There was fighting in Angola, Afghanistan, Nicaragua. There was serious stuff going on.”

When Bell decided to run for office himself, he was enjoying a successful career as Orange County’s prosecuting attorney, and he branded himself a “law-and-order” Republican. By then he was married to a teacher, Jessica—a fact he frequently mentions to illustrate his support for education.

Bell’s rhetoric left no doubt he would be a conservative, law-and-order Republican—but some voters wondered how Bell’s aversion to spending would play in a County where money for public education is an extremely big deal.

“Virginia ranks 43rd in the nation for education spending,” says Marjorie Shepherd, who teaches 8th grade civics at Henley Middle School. “There’s big shortfalls in the budget, and that affects PVCC and UVA.”

Shepherd, former president of the Albemarle Education Association, says she’s talked to many teachers who favor higher taxes, which Bell opposes.

“The shortfall in the State is so severe, we shouldn’t be messing around with these tightwad stances,” Shepherd says.

Party pressure

With his spectacles, neatly parted hair and youthful aspects, Bell still looks like the Boy Scout he used to be. (He reached Scouting’s highest level, Eagle, in 1982.) He bet that the nice-young-man image that won over the Haussmanns would play well throughout the County, so Bell and his friends knocked on about 14,000 doors during the summer of 2001. It paid off in November, and Bell was off to Richmond that winter.

Bell claims he hasn’t felt much pressure to march in lockstep with party leaders. Outside observers say otherwise, that Bell is likely feeling some heat.

“There is tremendous pressure on members to toe the party line when you get to Richmond,” says Stroupe. This year, he says, Bell will face a conflict between colleagues who oppose new taxes and a constituency that is closely aligned with education. “This is probably one of the most difficult sessions for Bell to balance the interests of his constituents with the interest of his caucus,” Stroupe says.

Virginia Republicans have not always tolerated insubordination. Bob Bloxom spent 27 years representing the Eastern Shore in the House of Delegates. When the Republican began shifting from conservative to moderate on issues like abortion and taxes, his party kicked him off the House Appropriations committee, where he had worked for 16 years, and off the Labor and Commerce committee, which he chaired.

“There’s a trend of a more dominant party leadership, where they say ‘This is our position and you’re supposed to follow it,’” says Bloxom. “New delegates are lined up and told what to do.”

Bloxom calls Bell “a bright young fellow.

“He strikes me as one of those who looks carefully at issues and not just follows somebody else’s lead,” Bloxom says. “I think there will be pressures on him to do that, though, at least from some people. I’m of the opinion right now that everything is being done for reelection, and that’s different than when I first got to Richmond.”

On the job in Richmond

Bell says he’s got one of the best “feedback loops” in the General Assembly.

“Watching the other delegates go through mail, I think I have more direct contact with people than anybody else,” says Bell. His constituency, he says, is very educated, highly energized and benefits from a glut of media outlets covering local politics. “Every article in the paper means I get a letter or two.” (After reading this article, you can contact Bell by phone at 804-698-1058 or via e-mail at Del_Bell@house.state.va.us.)

Bell says Albemarle voters’ comments run the gamut, from advice on the mix of perennials planted along State roadways to questions about why America went to war with Iraq. It’s the classic conundrum of representative democracy—voters elected Bell to serve their interests, but if he tried to do everything people told him, he’d be a rudderless ship adrift in the currents of public opinion.

“It’s a challenge for any member,” says UVA’s Stroupe. “You can’t go to a place like Richmond without some guiding principles. You try to convey your beliefs and ideas, so that constituents aren’t surprised when you get there.

“People are not surprised by Rob Bell,” says Stroupe. “What you see is what you get.”

On Sunday, February 8, Bell met with his favorite subcommittee—the criminal law division of the larger Courts of Justice Committee. “It’s where all the lobbyists are, it’s where the money is. Every little word can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars,” says Bell.

On that day, he listened intently while Del. Robert McDonnell (R-Virginia Beach) described a bill that would allow the courts to confiscate the cars of drunk drivers after their third offense.

Another delegate suggested adding language to the bill that would protect innocent people—for example, a grandmother shouldn’t lose her car if her grandson takes it on a drunken joyride.

Bell examined the Code of Virginia on his laptop computer. He suggested that the bill simply refer to existing law that governs property seizure by the court.

“In a drunk driving case, the car is like the gun used to commit a murder,” says Bell. “We’re talking about criminal instrumentality. Are we making something needlessly complicated?”

As Albemarle’s delegate, this is Bell in a nutshell—he has a lawyer’s gift for arguments by analogy, and as a general rule he favors “getting tough” on crime. Otherwise, he wants to limit government’s influence wherever possible in people’s lives.

“Rob is probably one of the most focused legislators that I’ve seen,” says David Blount, who lobbies the General Assembly for the five counties in the Thomas Jefferson Planning District. “He puts everything he’s got into the work he’s doing. That’s evident just by watching him when he’s in a committee meeting—he’s reading, he’s thinking, he’s asking questions.”

Republicans divided

Even Bell’s adversaries admit the Albemarle delegate is tough, but fair-minded. He sticks to his principles, says Ben Greenberg, who lobbies the General Assembly on behalf of Planned Parenthood, but he’s no sheep blindly following the party line.

“He looks at a bill, studies it. He assesses the bill on its own merits and makes up his own mind,” says Greenberg. “I’ve always found him willing to listen, although he doesn’t always agree with me.”

While this session’s 20 drunk driving bills have garnered headlines, this year’s General Assembly seems more focused on restricting access to abortion and contraception. Bell’s colleagues in the House of Delegates have been particularly aggressive—especially Republican delegates Bob Marshall, Richard Black and Kathy Byron, who have discovered that angry attacks on liberals, gays and non-Christians get attention and win approval from their suburban voters.

There are currently 21 anti-abortion bills in the House and Senate that would, among other things, force clinics to either close or comply with onerous regulations. Other bills aim to equate birth control with abortion, and ban college campuses from distributing high doses of conventional birth control known as “emergency contraception.”

Bell’s record on these bills is mixed. He voted against H.B. 1414, which would outlaw emergency contraception, saying that college students are adults and should be able to make their own decisions. “I thought it was inappropriate,” says Bell. He also opposed H.B. 1403, which would require doctors to obtain parental approval before prescribing emergency contraception.

“If I were king, I might be able to craft a bill I liked,” says Bell. “But this one doesn’t have enough protection in cases of sexual assault.”

Bell voted for a TRAP bill that would require abortion clinics to meet ambulatory surgery regulations—Bell saw it as a midway point between the fewest regulations and the most. He voted against other TRAP bills.

This makes Bell one of the few Republicans to break rank—last week the anti-abortion bills resoundingly passed the House of Delegates, almost exactly down party lines. While they are expected to die in the Senate, which is dominated by moderate Republicans, the sheer number of anti-abortion bills is “discouraging,” says Greenberg.

While Bell is what Greenberg calls a “swing vote” on social issues, he stands with his fellow conservative Delegates on this session’s most divisive issue—the budget.

Virginia’s budget contains a $1 billion hole that Governor Mark Warner hopes to plug by revamping the State’s tax code. Warner’s plan to increase sales, income and cigarette taxes was killed by the House Finance Committee on February 4, setting up a battle between Senate Republicans who have aligned with Democrats to raise taxes, and House Republicans like Bell, who want to cut spending and revoke tax exemptions the State grants to businesses. On Sunday, February 22, the House and Senate presented drafts of their competing budgets. This week the negotiations between moderate Republicans in the Senate and conservative Republicans in the House highlights the philisophical split in the Virginia GOP.

“The notion that we cut is a misnomer,” says Bell in defense of the House’s budget. He says that Virginia’s budget has risen in excess of its population growth. “Individual agencies do get cut, but in terms of overall government spending, we’re spending more per person every year. We should look at prioritizing,” says Bell.

While this puts Bell in line with his House colleagues, it could cause him trouble in Albemarle, where schools are a popular issue and many residents work for the State as employees of UVA.

Shepherd, the Henley civics teacher, says she wrote to Bell, encouraging him to support tax reform.

“I don’t think he’s going to,” says Shepherd. “It seems like he’s talking from both sides of his mouth,” she says of Bell. “People have no right to call themselves education candidates, then not fund education. I think that’s one thing that Rob Bell does,” Shepherd says.

Considering Albemarle’s conflicting political identity—the mixed party loyalties, shifting voters, the influence of UVA—it’s hard for even seasoned analysts to predict how Bell’s no-tax policy will play among his constituents.

“A lot of members are going to have to go on record for or against tax increases,” says UVA’s Stroupe. “It poses a challenge for any member of the General Assembly whose district is so closely aligned with education.”

Bell says he and his conservative colleagues in the House want to protect education from spending cuts that have gutted other programs. “It’s fair to say there will never be enough money to make everyone happy,” says Bell. “If you look at what got cut and what didn’t over the past two years, K-12 education did better than most.”

Nevertheless, UVA is so upset about what administrators say is a lack of financial support from the General Assembly that it is seeking greater autonomy from the State, and that frustration could trickle down to Albemarle’s myriad teachers and parents. In 2003, Albemarle Democrats must have been satisfied with Bell’s performance, however, since they didn’t field a candidate to oppose him in the November race.

 

Q: Ace, it seems like every structure at UVA bears the name of some wealthy, white member of The Establishment—probably the plantation owner whose slaves laid the bricks. Is the whole campus whitewashed or are there any buildings named after African Americans?—Ro Tunda

A:Good question, Ro. After all, what fresh-faced undergrad hasn’t spent many ponderous hours strolling around UVA, wondering and snickering about the stuffy suits of yesteryear whose names are now immortalized in the red brick and marble of Cocke, Balz or Woody Hall? Sure, they all contributed to the growth of UVA. But mustn’t there have been a notable black among them who lived up to the school’s high standard for building naming?

According to M. Rick Turner, UVA dean of African-American affairs, there is one, the W.E.B. DuBois Tutorial Center. But “I wouldn’t call that a major accomplishment on the part of the University of Virginia, to name a dilapidated building the W.E.B. Dubois Center,” says Turner. “I don’t give them any credit for that.” Ditto for the home of UVA’s Black Leadership Institute, the Luther P. Jackson Black Cultural Center (named for a Virginia civil rights activist and historian), which Turner overlooked in his comments.

That leaves the Carter G. Woodson Institute for Afro-American and African Studies, located in Minor Hall, which Turner says is the University’s “only program named after an African-American figure.” And that leads to the next question: Who in the name of Jefferson was Carter G. Woodson? Ace gave the pop quiz to Scot French, associate director of the Woodson Institute, who got it right on the first try: “He [was] the father of African-American history,” says French.

Woodson, an early 20th-century writer and educator, founded Negro History Week in 1926, partly to honor Frederick Douglass’ February 14 birthday. (Ace figures dubbing those heart-shaped cards “Douglasses” just didn’t have the same ring.) In 1976, 26 years after Woodson’s death, the week stretched into Black History Month.

Woodson was a native of New Canton, Virginia, and Turner says he’s not aware of any Woodson connection to UVA. But skimming the Woodson Institute’s Web page, Ace learned the name honors the “founder of African and African American Studies and [challenges] the historically white University to place the African American experience at the center of its teaching and research programs.”

It’s doubtful Mr. Jefferson’s University will ever be rededicated to George and Weezy. But as progress builds on progress, it’s only a matter of time before more successful African Americans appear on UVA maps. Ace thinks associate architecture professor and soon to be ex-mayor Maurice Cox might be a good candidate.

Q: Ace, I read in The Cavalier Daily recently that a building at UVA is going to be moved—the whole building, mind you—sometime this summer. Aside from the question of how it’s possible to move an entire structure, when is this happening, and what does this mean for traffic around the University when it does?—Driver Ed

A: Mary Hughes, landscape architect at the University, confirms that UVA plans on moving Varsity Hall from its current Hospital Drive home to 15th Street, just south of the alley behind the Berringer Mansion, a.k.a. the French House (bonjour!). It’s all part of a plan to make room for an addition to the back of Rouss Hall, where the School of Commerce will be relocated.

All well and good, but Ace couldn’t help but think it was a lot of work to move the building—which has housed the Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps since the 1950s—when it could just be, y’know, destroyed. “We went through a great deal of soul-searching about the fate of the building,” Hughes says. “It’s just too significant a structure to demolish.”

Constructed in the 1850s by then-University architect William Pratt, Hughes says Varsity Hall was one of the first, if not the first, purposefully built infirmaries on any college campus in the country. It was also likely used as a hospital for Confederate soldiers fighting in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War, although little documentation exists.

O.K., Ace gets that it’s worth saving. As for when it’ll be moved, that’s unclear. Hughes says the University is shooting for this summer, but that all depends on how the current public bidding process among house-moving companies goes. (That will answer lots of other questions, like cost.)

As for how it will disrupt traffic, Hughes says that she is already working with City of Charlottesville engineer Tony Edwards to make what she figures is a quarter-mile move—part of which will cross Jefferson Park Avenue—as smooth as possible. And while the whole process will likely take two to three months, from getting the structure off of its foundations to settled in its new location, she expects it will only close down JPA for three to five days.

So come this summer, don’t be surprised to see an enormous building wheeled through the University area on a truck. “I’m sure it’s going to be fascinating,” Hughes says. “They say the interior can stay intact. If they move a house you can leave the china in a cabinet.” Ace’ll remember that next time he moves apartments.

It all started back in January 1999 with an order to Domino’s Pizza. Sharon Jones paid for the pizza with a check, and likely brought it into her modest townhouse in Fredericksburg to share with her 8-year-old daughter, Breanna. But Jones never actually paid for the pizza—at least not that Sharon Jones. Because the checking account in question was taken out under the identity of a different Sharon Jones, one who lives 70 miles away in Charlottesville.

This second Sharon Jones, a 41-year-old single mother and sixth grade teacher at Walker Elementary School, didn’t learn about the $23 Domino’s charge or realize she was a victim of identity theft until eight months later, when she tried to co-sign a car loan for her brother. Though she always pays her bills on time, and thought she had excellent credit, her credit union rejected the loan request.

“That can’t be correct,” Jones remembers thinking of the credit rejection.

After ordering her credit report, Jones was shocked to read that she had accrued more than $30,000 in unpaid bills. The Charlottesville resident recognized none of the overdue expenses, which were charged to accounts at credit card companies, banks, department stores, and furniture and electronics retailers, most of which were in the Fredericksburg area. She even saw late rent payments and hospital charges on the credit report.

Jones started calling the companies to whom she owed money and was told that she was registered with them as a GEICO employee who lived in Fredericksburg.

“I’ve never lived in Fredericksburg. I’ve never been to Fredericksburg,” says Jones, who owns a small home in the 10th and Page neighborhood of Charlottesville.

It was the beginning of Jones’ long relationship with Sharon Patrice Jones, a woman whom she’s never met, though both women know many intimate details about each other.

Sharon Deloris Jones held a GEICO car insurance policy, and was able to piece the mystery together when she learned that a woman who shared her first and last names had been a customer service representative for the company in its Fredericksburg office. The similarly named rep lifted Jones’ social security number and other information, essentially assuming her identity.

Finally aware that she was being victimized, Jones began trying to undo the damage.

“It was like one affidavit after another,” Jones says of trying to expunge the many charges that the other Sharon Jones ran up on her credit report. Often she had to send her utility bills to companies to prove she lived in Charlottesville and was not the woman who had purchased furniture, clothes, or even junk food from 7-Eleven.

A couple months after the August 1999 discovery of her identity thief, Jones received a court warrant for a hearing in Fredericksburg. The identity thief had brought her daughter to a hospital for abdominal pains in April of 1999. The unpaid hospital bill for the visit was $275, and Jones was to be the defendant in the debt case. By explaining that this charge was actually the work of her identity thief, Jones was able to talk her way out of the court appearance. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be her last summons.

During this period, Jones was getting calls at home and at work. And because of all the bills and related paperwork, Jones grew accustomed to the “headache of wondering what’s going to be on my door today.” One day in June of 2000, Jones found a yellow paper stuck to her front door. The letter was a summons stating that unless she paid $956 in late rent and fees for her imposter’s townhouse in Fredericksburg, she would have her wages garnished at her job. To contest the charge, she would have to appear at a court hearing in Stafford.

Jones was not able to appease the court with phone calls that time, and had to take time off of her job to travel to Stafford and stand trial. But by then she had an ally. Jones says calls she’d made to the Charlottesville and Fredericksburg police departments got her nowhere. But after a friend advised her to call the State Police, she finally reached Lindsay Jett in the office of Criminal Investigations in Culpeper.

Officer Jett was familiar with identity theft, and took a police report from Jones. Jett also tracked down a photo of the imposter Sharon P. Jones from her old GEICO job in Fredericksburg. But to beat the rap, Jones needed more than Jett and a picture of her identity thief. She hired a lawyer, and brought the maintenance man from the criminal’s apartment complex to the trial. When this witness testified that Jones was not the Jones who worked for GEICO and lived in the townhouse, she was finally off the hook.

But Jones’ extensive and successful battles to keep her wages from being garnished were not the end of her war to win her name back from a system that believed she was a debtor and a criminal. In fact, five years after that first Domino’s pizza, she’s still feeling the effects of Sharon P. Jones’ meddling.

Just two months ago, Jones tried to pay for dinner at Chili’s in Charlottesville with a check. She was rejected. And, as has so often been the case, she felt as if she was being eyed as a scam artist.

“To prove that it wasn’t me made me feel like a double victim,” Jones says of having to constantly verify that she’s not a check-bouncing crook.

Jones is tall and exudes a polite confidence. And, as one might expect with a woman who knows how to control a room full of sixth-graders, she appears tough to rattle. But when Jones sees the clever and ubiquitous Citibank commercials on T.V.—the ones that attach the incongruous voices of identity thieves to the talking heads of their victims, like an old lady skimming her swimming pool—Jones says, “I get ticked.

“I’m sitting here and I’m thinking, ‘If they only knew,’” Jones says of the commercials. “They’re making a joke of it. It’s not a joke if it happens to you.”

 

“It is the fastest growing crime in Virginia,” says Jerry Kilgore, Virginia’s Attorney General, of identity theft. The numbers back up Kilgore’s claim, with complaints from identity theft victims increasing by 27 percent in Virginia in the last year alone, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Nationally, the FTC estimates that nearly one in 10 Americans have been victims of some form of identity theft in the last five years, and says the magnitude of the problem has been swelling every year.

Kilgore, 42, a prominent Republican and likely future candidate for Virginia’s governorship, has been leading the Commonwealth’s efforts to combat identity theft. As a successful prosecutor, Kilgore put away hundreds of drug dealers. Later, while serving as the public safety czar under former Virginia Governor George Allen, Kilgore was instrumental in Virginia’s abolition of parole. But identity theft is more than just another component of Kilgore’s hard-on-crime mantra; it’s a threat that scares him personally.

“It’s a crime that can be committed by someone you don’t even see, and you don’t even know it’s happened to you until it’s too late. That’s very frightening,” Kilgore says.

There are many ways someone’s identity can be pilfered, and thieves are getting increasingly computer savvy, according to the Blackberry-toting Kilgore. The general definition of the crime is when a victim’s social security number, credit card numbers or other key personal identifiers are stolen and used to make illicit purchases. [For more, see sidebar, page 14.]

The least serious version of the crime is when existing credit card or bank accounts are used, such as when a thief steals a wallet and frantically uses the credit cards to run up a few charges before the cards are cancelled. This form of identity theft can also occur when credit card numbers are lifted from the Internet, stolen mail, via e-mail or phone scams, through overheard cell phone conversations or even from discarded receipts and bills, a common practice called “dumpster diving.” For this variety of the crime, identity thieves blow through an average of $2,100 per victim before the stolen accounts are closed, according to the FTC.

Sharon Deloris Jones, whose personal information was snagged from a business and then used to open numerous new accounts, falls into the second, more serious version of identity theft. With a social security number, a criminal can literally assume another identity and open new credit, phone or other accounts, sometimes directing the bills to false addresses so victims are completely unaware that a profligate thief is running wild on their dime. Because a victim usually must access her credit report or, in some cases, be tracked down by collection agencies or even arrested before she becomes aware of her imposter, the lag time before discovery can be quite long—eight months in Jones’ case.

Though the hospital bills and other charges Sharon P. Jones racked up were decidedly low-rent—a far cry from Hollywood-style criminal expenses such as diamond rings or massive strip club bills—she still managed to spend $30,000 in the eight months before being discovered. Though of small comfort to Jones, a tab of this size may actually be in the low end of what identity thieves can accomplish when new accounts are opened, with the Identity Theft Resource Center estimating that the average amount of fraud charges may be as high as $92,000 per victim.

 

After her trial in Stafford in the summer of 2000, Jones says her “hopes were high” that the identity theft nightmare would soon end. She was becoming an expert in dealing with the credit damage, and now had a capable detective on her case. But Sharon P. Jones, whereabouts unknown, continued to use her identity. And the police report did little to stem the tide of credit hassles for Jones.

“I have all the documentation I need,” Jones says, gesturing to a two-inch thick manila folder of bills and affidavits. “And it’s like, ‘Oh well.’”

Finally, a break in the case came in the form of yet another unearned bill. Jones’ imposter had been in a car accident in Biloxi, Mississippi, on September 16, 2000, and had used Jones’ identity at the scene of the crash. Almost a year later, State Farm Insurance sent Jones a bill for $4,200 in damage. Jones immediately called Officer Jett and told him that her identity thief might be living in the Biloxi area. In a stroke of unbelievable luck, Jett knew a cop in nearby Gulfport, also on the casino-dotted Mississippi gulf coast. When Jett called Sgt. Ken Brown in Gulfport that same night, Brown said he knew who the criminal was.

Jones’ imposter had been in another accident, and had been arrested for using false identification at the scene. She posted $25,000 in bail and was released. But four days later, with the Gulfport police now aware of her Virginia warrant, Sharon P. Jones was arrested and charged with the fraudulent use of identity, a felony. She was extradited to Virginia.

But fortunes shift often and quickly for Sharon Jones, the victim, during her identity theft saga. Virginia authorities eventually released her identity thief, for reasons that were never explained to Jones. There are no records that her identity thief ever appeared in a Virginia court for the crimes against Jones. Sharon P. Jones eventually went back to Mississippi to face charges in that state. But Officer Brown, a key component in that case, is in the Air Force Reserves, and was mobilized and sent away to the United Arab Emirates shortly after September 11, 2001. As a result, both Brown and Jones missed the court hearing of Sharon P. Jones.

By the time Jones heard about her imposter’s appearance before a grand jury in Gulfport, which finally took place in October 2002, the hearing was already over. The district attorney’s office in Gulfport, Mississippi, sent her a letter, which informed her that the grand jury decided to drop the case, and that the “ruling ends further prosecution in this matter.”

Charles Wood, the assistant district attorney in Gulfport, says the ruling means the grand jury “determined that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to go forward with the case.” Short of tracking down the jurors and asking them why they made the decision, Wood says, “there’s really nothing else” Jones can do to pursue the case in Mississippi courts.

In the struggle of Jones vs. Jones, the criminal version clearly has the upper hand.

“She’s out running free and probably doing it to someone else now,” Jones says. “There’s no telling where she is now.”

Jones’ inability to bring her identity thief to justice is, sadly, common. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), a nonprofit group based in San Diego, Jones should consider herself lucky for securing the apprehension of her thief—even though the charge didn’t stick—because less than 5 percent of identity theft cases result in an arrest.

“These are Agatha Christie stories. There are so many red herrings and false trails,” says Linda Foley, the ITRC’s executive director and a victim of identity theft herself.

Investigations are further hampered because identity theft often crosses jurisdictions, sometimes separating victims and criminals by hundreds of miles. With rapes, murders and other crimes to solve, where both victim and perpetrator are usually local, police often put identity crimes on the back burner.

“Some police departments take it more seriously than others,” Foley says. “When you get a case that crosses jurisdictional lines geographically, they just drop it.”

Both Ken Brown in Gulfport, now a Lieutenant, and Officer Jett in Culpeper declined to comment for this story, citing police protocol. However, when Jett is asked if he remembers Jones’ case, he pauses, and says, “I have so many cases.”

The problems don’t end with a criminal’s arrest. Convicting an identity thief requires a preponderance of evidence and a clear paper trail, because the act of forging signatures and opening accounts lacks witnesses and, often, clear culpability. And solid documentation might not be enough for a conviction.

Attorney General Kilgore says he’s satisfied with the strength of Virginia’s laws against identity theft. But even with strong laws, Kilgore says it can be tough to get a conviction in identity theft cases.

“You have witnesses unable to travel. You have witnesses and all records in many, many other jurisdictions,” Kilgore says. “It becomes very difficult for a local prosecutor, if you will, to commit the resources to what they believe is a paper crime—or a crime that just involves money—when it’s really a crime that has wrecked some other individual’s life.”

 

Kilgore’s office began tracking identity theft in earnest after seeing a disturbing increase in the crimes about two years ago. After holding a series of public hearings, the Attorney General’s office drew up the Identity Theft Protection Act. The bill, which was introduced in the General Assembly last January by Albemarle Delegate Rob Bell, strengthened existing Virginia laws on identity theft in several ways. A key component of the bill, which was passed and became active last July, was to require credit bureaus to strike any information on a credit report relating to an identity theft once a victim has filed a police report. [For more information, see sidebar.]

The law proves that the individual has taken steps to report the identity theft and, “most importantly, it more likely than not prevents new credit being issued,” Kilgore says. “Because if they pull up their credit report at the credit card company, or at the bank, they’ll immediately start asking more questions.”

However, only one of the recently passed laws has benefited Sharon Jones: the creation of the “I.D. Theft Passport,” which is intended to help people prove to creditors and police that they are victims, not criminals. Last July, when the new rules went into effect, Kilgore’s office gave one of the first three passports to Jones, who carries the fairly official looking document around with her in a little leather pouch. The passport, which Jones can flip open like a badge, includes Jones’ full name and the State seal, and says that she is the victim of identity theft. Kilgore says about 50 Virginians now carry the passport.

Jones whipped out her passport at Chili’s when her check got nixed a few weeks ago. She says the restaurant was unmoved by the passport and still wouldn’t accept the check. To help Jones and others avoid this rejection, Kilgore says his office is working to get the word out about the I.D. passports to merchants.

Unlike many people, Jones has been diligent with her finances her whole life. She owns both her house and her car, and her meticulous record keeping is a family joke. But despite playing by the rules, Jones has been unable to fully escape the hole of identity theft. Because of her credit woes, she has had to rely on family members to purchase items for her, such as when her brother-in-law got her a SunCom cell phone because she couldn’t qualify for an account herself. The massive energy she’s spent fixing her credit record has left her feeling defeated at times. And regardless of having a powerful ally in the Attorney General’s office—she even met with Kilgore—Jones has been unable to find a lawyer willing to take on GEICO to seek compensation for her, claiming that lawyers say that GEICO is too powerful to make the pursuit worthwhile.

She admits that she sometimes wishes she had a different name, and says she now routinely uses her middle name.

Foley of the Identity Theft Resource Center says victims of identity theft often display signs of post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the relentless assault of bills and the stigma of being falsely labeled as criminals.

“They are battered,” Foley says. “It’s not unusual for them to give up.”

After five years of fixing the mess created by her criminal doppelganger, Jones stoically declares that her credit problems are sure to continue “somewhere down the line.” And despite the passport and other assistance from his office, Attorney General Kilgore is not surprised that she’s still having problems.

“The general prediction is seven years out, you can still have things crop back up on your credit report or in someone’s file somewhere,” Kilgore says.

In her folder documenting the identity theft, Jones keeps a printout of GEICO’s privacy policy. She has highlighted various sections in the document, one of which states: “Information about our customers or former customers will only be disclosed as permitted or required by law.” After repeated calls, GEICO declined to comment for the story.

Of her imposter’s failed adherence to GEICO’s customer confidentially, Jones says, “Evidently she had other things in mind.”

Given the apparent ease with which the customer service rep appropriated her identity, Jones doubts she was Sharon P. Jones’ only victim.

“How many other Sharon Joneses are in there?” she asks. “I believe she’s a pro at it. So it’s not the first time that she’s done this.” Jones will probably never know whether she was victimized by a savvy identity thief or by a struggling single mother who stumbled upon the social security number of a woman who shared her name—a case of what Foley of the ITRC calls “the wrong people in the right place.”

Asked what she would say to Sharon P. Jones if she ever got the chance to speak to her, Jones says she’d be too angry to get a word out. After a minute, she reconsiders, and says, “One thing I would tell her is that she really screwed me over.”

 

On a recent visit to Wal-Mart, Jones says the cashier ran her check through a machine and then turned on a light above the register to summon a manager. She says fellow customers were looking at her as if she was “trying to run a scam.” So on a recent busy Saturday afternoon at the same store, both Jones and her son appear uneasy as they move forward in the checkout line. Jones’ son Rickquan, a polite and intelligent 10-year-old with corn-rows, pulls a cell phone out of his black leather jacket and fumbles with it as his mom fills out a check for the $15.37 worth of juice and crackers.

The cashier takes the check and runs it through a slot on the side of the register. After it comes out, she squints at the check and says, “We need some I.D. please.” The cashier then puts on a pair of thick glasses, examines Jones’ driver’s license and starts typing on the register again. After what seems like an abnormally long time, the check clears.

In front of the store, Jones says hello to one of her students—one of several conversations she has with students and parents while at Wal-Mart. Before walking through the chaotic parking lot, she smiles, and admits that she was nervous while her check was being scrutinized.

“I was nervous, too,” Rickquan quickly adds.

 

Say my name

Once a thief has your vitals, he has many ways to steal your moneySharon Jones shares the legal name of the woman who stole her identity. But even an uncommon name is no defense against identity theft. Authorities describe many cases in which people with different names, even of different genders, have used victims’ information to run up huge bills. The social security number of one woman, whose purse was stolen in 1990, was listed in FBI criminal records under a different name, and as a man.

The personal information used in identity thefts often comes from stolen wallets and purses, but can also be gleaned from stolen mail, hacked computer information, e-mail scams or stolen customer information from businesses. Thieves can even fill out a change of address form at the post office to intercept mail and then lift information from bills and other letters.

Once a criminal has a name, social security number and date of birth, there are countless ways he can begin siphoning money away from the system, unbeknownst to the person whose identity he has stolen. For instance, the thief can call the victim’s credit card companies and ask to have bills sent to a new address. With the bills going elsewhere, it can be a while before a victim discovers the crime.

Some other common scams include the opening of new bank accounts on which thieves can write checks, get new credit cards, take out loans to buy cars, open cell phone accounts, and even declare bankruptcy. If an identity thief is arrested, he can use a victim’s name and then skip a court date. When this happens, a warrant is often issued for the victim.

Once wise to the con, an identity dupe might find the going tough at the local police department. For starters, the crime is still relatively new for law enforcement. But perhaps an even bigger stumbling block is the long reach of identity theft.

“So often these identity thieves are in other states,” says Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore.

Such was the case for Angel Gonzales, a resident of the Tidewater area of Virginia, who was arrested for the crimes of an identity thief operating in Las Vegas.—P.F.

how to avoid identity theft

Unless you live off the grid, it’s impossible to completely insulate yourself against identity theft. A massive array of routine activities—such as mailing a bill, signing up for car insurance or making a credit card purchase on the Internet—require enough personal information to give identity thieves a wide-enough opening to filch an identity.

The best way to reduce the risk of identity theft is to avoid disclosing a social security number unless absolutely necessary. If an unsolicited phone or e-mail pitch quickly requires your social security number, be suspicious. But because even a vigilant consumer is open to identity theft, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recommends that people access their credit reports from all three credit bureaus once a year. This will tell you whether a thief is trashing your credit rating and running up huge bills on your dime. And if they are, you can begin minimizing the damage.

In the eight months before Sharon Jones looked at her credit reports, her identity thief spent more than $30,000 in her name. Even more disturbingly, this may actually represent the low end of the money identity thieves can run through. In one survey of identity theft victims, conducted by the Identity Theft Resources Center, the average fraud charge on an individual’s name was $92,893.

Upon request, the three major credit bureaus—Equifax, Experian and TransUnion—are required to release copies of credit reports for no more than $9. If bogus charges show up on a credit report, your next step is to place a fraud report with one of the three credit bureaus—the other two will be notified automatically. Then, an identity theft victim must begin closing accounts that include false charges or have been opened by a thief. During this process, the victim should also report the crime to the police. The police report can be helpful in contesting false charges.

The FTC also asks identity theft victims to file their complaint with the agency, which can be reached at www.consumer.gov/idtheft, so the feds can keep a handle on the scope and trends of the ever-changing crime. Finally, Virginians can also apply to the Attorney General’s Office to get an I.D. Theft Passport that will help them prove they are the victims, not perpetrators, of identity theft. To apply for the passport, see the A.G.’s web site at, www.oag.state.va.us/hot_topics.htm.—P.F.

You’ve got love
Hope and hookups on match.com

When “Cynthia’s” husband died last year, the 51-year-old mother of five grown children felt lonely, but terrified to reenter the dating scene.

“It was like I had to get a whole new life,” says Cynthia, who asked not to be identified by her real name. “And they say it’s so hard to meet people in Charlottesville. When you’re past the half-century mark, the odds are definitely not in the female’s favor. Guys start dropping like flies.”

Suddenly single after decades of marriage, Cynthia says she didn’t have any single girlfriends to spend time with. A conservative country girl from Northern Virginia, she wasn’t about to start cruising the bar scene. So Cynthia joined the more than 3,000 people in the Charlottesville area who use match.com, one of the most popular Internet dating sites.

“My mom and my sister started screaming when I told them,” says Cynthia. “They didn’t want me going out to meet strangers.”

Match.com evolved when a group of San Francisco techies started an online classifieds business in 1995. The exploding personals section soon became the sole focus of the new business. In its first 10 months, match.com registered 60,000 new subscribers, says Kathleen Roldan, the company’s director of dating. These days, Roldan says the site registers 60,000 new members every three days. Match.com boasts 12 million active users around the world, with 27 international sites using the local language and currency. In 2003, match.com raked in about $185 million for its parent company, InterActiveCorp—a giant e-commerce company that owns Ticketmaster, Expedia, Lending Tree and Hotels.com.—the company’s website states.

The rise of match.com can also be charted by observing the demise of newspaper personal ads. In 2000, the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies lamented a nationwide decline in newspaper personals that began in the mid-1990s.

C-VILLE introduced an expanded “Personals” section in April 1995, the year match.com launched. One month later, in May 1995, there were 58 personal ads in C-VILLE. The ads were punchy, jam-packed with acronyms and humor. For example: “SWF ISO SWM who aren’t gay, married or hung up on their mothers. No wimps. Able to hike Humpback in less than 17 minutes.”

By the May 30, 2000, issue, the number of personals was at 36. Two years later, that number was 31.

 

The statistics are troubling for us newspaper folk, but even we have to concede match.com has distinct advantages over print personals—the most obvious being that on the Internet you can see pictures.

A 42-year-old gay man who asked to be identified as “Bob” says via e-mail that personals are “too difficult to manage.” He says he uses Internet dating because as a gay male, Charlottesville “has limitations for dating in my 40something category.” His profile on match.com yields about one meeting per month. “I’ve met some nice people. Not THE one yet,” Bob writes. “It’s kinda like being a door-to-door salesman. You keep knocking on doors and never let them get you down. You believe in your goods and make the best presentation possible.”

Cynthia says she likes match.com because she has unlimited space to write as much as she wants about herself and the type of man she’s looking for. Users adopt pseudonyms and set up match.com e-mail accounts that allow people to send anonymous messages to each other.

“I’m very careful about giving out my name and phone number,” says Cynthia. “At my age, most of the guys have been around the block. It’s hard to find somebody who’s a decent person, not a kink.”

 

Good news, men—match.com’s male/ female ratio for Charlottesville is 55:45, while the overall average is closer to 60:40, says Roldan.

For insights on modern courtship and for sheer entertainment value, it’s hard to beat the profiles on match.com. The site functions like newspaper personals—it’s free to post a profile (and a photo) and free to browse the site. But if you find someone you like, the site charges $25 per month (with discounts for three- and six-month memberships) before you can start wooing the object of your affection with e-mails or voicemails.

Locally, 18- to 35-year-olds make up the majority of match.com users. Their profiles tend to be shorter, full of humor and irony, with liberal use of the abbreviations (“u” instead of “you,” or “LOL” for “laugh out loud” after a joke) that have come to mark e-mail discourse.

Until recently, Internet dating sites were viewed as a refuge for the socially inept. But as match.com’s popularity has surged, more attractive, straight young people like Eric Wang, a UVA law student, are shopping the match.com marketplace to supplement their normal social rituals. Still, there’s a stigma about Internet dating—Wang is the only person I interviewed who agreed to give his real name.

“I signed up for the first time recently because I was tired of the bar scene,” Wang says via e-mail. “I’m comfortable with the idea of Internet dating because I do almost everything else on the Internet too, from banking to shopping to research.”

Match.com is fun for young, straight users, but for people outside Charlottesville’s dating mainstream, such as gays or people over 50, match.com represents a vital window into potential mates who are otherwise difficult to meet.

“It’s very good for those with special needs,” says Amy Alkon, who writes the syndicated Advice Goddess column published in C-VILLE. “If you’re a transsexual, you can’t walk into a bar and meet somebody. You have to seek out somebody who’s looking for you.”

Alkon says people should take common sense precautions when using Internet dating. It’s important to set and stick to standards about who you want to meet, she says. Don’t be so desperate that you overlook bad qualities. Post a picture, and be honest about things like age and body type. And don’t go on the Internet looking for The One.

“I hate that term,” says Alkon. “I think it’s healthier if you’re just going out and trying to meet someone new.”

Because users are meeting people without context—no common activities or mutual friends—it’s easy for people to stretch the truth in their profiles, to exaggerate their good qualities or outright lie.

Alkon says it’s important to be skeptical about match.com profiles, and she says that carrying on long “pen pal” relationships over e-mail can lead to disappointments.

“What happens is you start to invent the other person in your head, and convince yourself they’re something they’re not,” says Alkon. “Talk to people on the phone, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. The only way you can tell if someone is telling the truth is time.”

 

Deception ruined Cynthia’s first match.com date. A man from Maryland spun an elaborate tale about how he was coming to Charlottesville to buy some dogs in Keswick, so Cynthia made plans to meet him at a restaurant. He never showed.

“It turns out he set up a double-header that night,” Cynthia says. “The first woman told him she had two lovers, and wanted a third. He couldn’t get home fast enough. It felt like I’d been slapped in the face, but I was tickled. That SOB got what he deserved. After that, it got a lot smoother.”

Cynthia says her best date so far was with a man from Virginia Beach. The two attended a New Year’s Eve party in Charlottesville, but afterward, she says, he told her, “’If you’re ever in Virginia Beach, give me a call.’ Well, I’m not going to go chase a man.”

While many of the younger users post snarky, funny profiles on match.com, older users tend to be more sincere. Cynthia quotes liberally from song lyrics (“Sometimes I’m an angel, sometimes I’m cruel/ but when it comes to love I’m just another fool”), movies like Bridget Jones’ Diary and from the many self-help books she’s pulled from the shelves of the “Relationships” section at Barnes and Noble.

Cynthia says she’s started calling the site match.comic, because many of the men who contact her are recently divorced (or sometimes still married) and looking for a kinky hookup or a nursemaid.

“There’s a lot of unhappy men looking for a woman to bring them happiness,” she says. “I can’t be that. They need psychotherapy or something.”

But Cynthia says she’ll stick with match.com, and she updates her profile every few days. For her, the rise of Internet dating has given her something she might not have had in the pre-cyber era—hope. Cynthia recently had a glamour shot taken at a photography studio, and posted the picture on her match.com page.

“It’s a good thing to keep an old gal going,” she says.—John Borgmeyer

 

TONGUES! Heinies!
Unmarried couples!
Virginia’s crime of passion

The following is a fictional criminal account:

On the night of February 14, a 25-year-old male and a 24-year-old female were seen leaving a Charlottesville restaurant. Witnesses saw the two alleged perpetrators, who are unmarried, leaving the restaurant and entering their shared apartment. The couple’s behavior was described as “affectionate.” Acting on a tip from a witness, police raided the apartment later that night and caught the two suspects engaged in an illegal activity. Specifically, the male suspect was apprehended while performing oral sex on the female. A soiled prophylactic was also discovered at the scene, leading investigators to believe that the couple had engaged in sexual intercourse earlier in the evening.

The couple was arrested and both were subsequently charged with misdemeanors for fornication, misdemeanors for lewd and lascivious cohabitation and felonies for sodomy. If convicted, both alleged perpetrators face up to five years in prison and fines of up to $3,250.

 

This hypothetical police blotter entry may seem farfetched, but the laws cited are indeed real. Though the police are hardly knocking down doors to arrest fornicators, sexually active Virginians beware—only married couples who avoid oral or anal sex can safely assume they are obeying the law in their bedroom.

However, the days of rampant lawless sex in Virginia may be numbered, as the Virginia General Assembly is set to consider several changes to the Commonwealth’s sex laws. Among the proposed changes is a repeal of the fornication law.

Currently, fornication counts as a Class 4 misdemeanor—the least serious category for a misdemeanor—and carries a maximum fine of $250. For those unfamiliar with the nature of the crime, the law defines the violation as, “Any person, not being married, who voluntarily shall have sexual intercourse with any other person, shall be guilty of fornication.”

In addition to debating the legality of fornication, Virginia’s legislators will decide whether cohabitation should be a criminal offense.

The law now states that, “If any persons, not married to each other, lewdly and lasciviously associate and cohabit together,” they are guilty of a misdemeanor and can be fined up to $500. However, roommates may no longer have to fear the long arm of the law whilst succumbing to lewd urges, because the proposed change would make such fraternizing illegal only when committed in public.

 

Though fornicators and cohabitating couples might soon enjoy newfound legal freedoms, those who dabble in oral or anal sex seem unlikely to catch any slack from Virginia’s legislators. The law that governs this felonious behavior resides deep within a chapter of the Virginia Code entitled Crimes Involving Morals and Decency. In this chapter, a short scroll below the rules for a legal duck race, is the “crimes against nature” law, which states: “If any person carnally knows in any manner any brute animal, or carnally knows any male or female person by the anus or by or with the mouth, or voluntarily submits to such carnal knowledge, he or she shall be guilty of a Class 6 felony”

Loosely translated, this edict means anyone on either side of a round of fellatio or cunnilingus is committing a felony, and could face a penalty of between one and five years in prison and a fine of up to $2,500. The same goes for anyone who gives anal sex a whirl: felonies all around. In the above fictional crime account, both the man and woman could be charged with a felony for being caught with his head between her legs. Sure, they might talk about it on “Sex and the City” but this is Virginia, and hot oral sex is not just fun and games.

The controversial sodomy law has persisted in part because of its symbolic status as an anti-gay statute. Under this law, any form of serious sexual contact between two people of the same sex is a felony.

Last summer, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Texas anti-sodomy law, which was similar to Virginia’s law. Anticipating possible challenges to the constitutionality of the Virginia sodomy law, the State Crime Commission has recommended adding a new law to the books that would prohibit sodomy in public. The General Assembly would then be able to retain the proposed public sodomy law if the broader “crime against nature” law were to be struck down. But in the meantime, the old sodomy act will remain in effect.

The Virginia General Assembly will consider the package of sex law reforms in coming weeks. Until then, many diversions of the bedroom will remain decidedly prohibited in Virginia—perhaps adding an extra thrill for Virginians with a penchant for the taboo.—Paul Fain

 

boy toys
A consumer guide to online sex aids: pumps, handles, spreadersthe whole package

E-mail spam for sex toys and products has exploded in the past year, cramming inboxes with missives about herbal breast-growth pills, cheap Viagra and magic lubricant. Sick of it all—and more than a little curious about what’s so “magic” about magic lubricant—C-VILLE put their money a little lower than their mouth, ordered a few of the more interesting intimate items off the Internet, and gave them to intrepid reporter Ace Atkins. Who then gave them to moi.

See, my big brother Ace might have the tenacity to track down rampant City rumors and corner feisty Carmike kitties, but he’s a bit of a pill in the sack. I have applied the legendary Atkins tenacity toother areas. And so, armed with nearly a half-dozen sex toys, plenty of lube (magical and non-magical) and a willing and able assistant, I got the lowdown on what these online sex products are worth. And let’s just say there’s a reason they’re called spam.

After opening the unmarked, FedEx’d box, there was clearly only one place to start: The Fireman’s Pump. (Mmmmm, firemen!) With a mixture of intrigue and horror I examined the bright red, clear plastic apparatus that, according to the box, packed “super suction power” “for the man who wants that real fire hose.” Who doesn’t? But I was a little hesitant about sticking li’l Pierce into an enclosed, tight-fighting object with lots of suction. Well, a mechanical one, anyway.

Taking no chances, I actually read the instructions. (I may be a man, but these are my meat and two veg we’re talking about.) The pump manufacturers advise using lots of lubricant, and after taking a peek at the fairly tight rubber seal, I concurred. Appropriately greased up, I gave it a try. After a couple of squeezes there was a slight twinge of pressure and thenmy penis exploded! Kidding. I got nuthin’.

I’m quite happy with my fire hose as it is, but I thought the point of a pump was to get guys large and in charge. A little irritated, and slightly chaffed, I turned to the Internet for answers. I found them at www.goaskalice.columbia.edu. I have no idea who the hell Alice is, or why this chick knows so much about penis pumps, but girlfriend explains that they aren’t for adding inches. They’re for making erections firmer. And since I’ve never had a problem in that area, I gave the pump to Ace. On to the Nipple Suckers.

 

Yep, Nipple Suckers. Or, as I refer to them, the “shovel handles.” We’re talking three-inch-long, hollow black rubber tubes that you squeeze to create pressure over the nipple. Liking nipple play as much as the next open-minded guy, I gave them a shot and gotnuthin’. There was a little discomfort, but not a lot of sensation. Worried that maybe I was having an “off day” I called over my able assistant to see if the old-fashioned way still worked. It did, and the Nipple Suckers didn’t stand up to the Pepsi challenge. They just sucked.

But they didn’t suck as bad as the edible condoms, technically titled Le Sensuous Sheath. The “condoms” come in four flavors: cherry, strawberry, orange and lemon. We gave strawberry a try first, and, thinking there were two pieces joined together, ripped it in half before realizing that there’s only one of each flavor—you have to wrap the split piece around your piece and then create a condom-shaped product through saliva and heat.

This presented several problems. First, the “condom” tore easily. Second, it actually stuck to his skin like a paste, which could be lots of fun to clean off—if they tasted like anything remotely edible. Imagine a Fruit Roll-Up with the consistency of wax paper and even less flavor. Ultimately, my able assistant had to wash the remainder off since I was alternating between chugging water and gagging.

To its credit, the “magic lubricant” didn’t make me gag. But nor did it do any tricks. We ordered Feathre Luv Macho Magic lubricant in kiwi (it also comes in hazelnut. Hazelnut?). It didn’t taste anything like kiwi, just lightly sweet. And as for its other promises—that it’s a “stimulating” gel for “enhancement and increase of male performance” that “gently warms while you play”—not so much. It did the basic lube job just fine, but there was no abracadabra. And, after comparing the ingredients to plain ol’ KY jelly—surprise, surprise—they’re the same. But KY is much, much cheaper.

The final product was the only one that actually met any kind of expectations. The Ball Spreader (go ahead and giggle) is a kind of modified leather, adjustable cock ring with an added loop to go around your member. Now, here’s a little primer for the more vanilla of Pierce’s readers out there: A cock ring loops around the base of the penis and under the testicles, separating them from the body proper. The fit must be extremely tight so that blood flows into the penis, but not out as easily. This can lead to a slightly larger erection, or at least a more rigid one.

We got the latter. Mind you, it took two of us to get the gizmo onto my able assistant, but it worked—although not any better than a regular cock ring. The extra loop seems mostly for decoration. But what a stylish decoration it was.—Pierce Atkins

The SEX files
Does Charlottesville prefer hot monkey sex or something “real”? The truth is in here

At last, the secret is revealed. C-VILLE’s second annual sex survey provides the answer to the age-old question, How do you find that special someone? “Tell your best friend you need to get laid,” responded one 20something woman, “that’s how I met my future husband.”

Sex and love. We always knew they went together.

A couple of months ago, we polled readers to get their pulse on sex and relationships, figuring that Valentine’s Day would be an apt occasion to deliver the results of the survey. And it comes down to this: You’d rather be close than closely entwined, if forced to choose. Not that sex ranks low on your list of concerns. But it just doesn’t seem to mean as much without that trust and commitment. Or so you say.

In the words of one 50something respondent: “Like a meal, any course is only part of the overall experience. Sex is only part of a good relationship. You can leave off a course and still have a most satisfactory meal. Where if you have five courses of dessert, for instance, you don’t have as good an experience. So, I’d rather have a good, satisfying relationship, sex included, than a one-course sex-only life.”

The writer was a woman, as were two-thirds of respondents. Overwhelmingly, people between 20 and 34 took the most interest in this topic. Nine out of 10 who answered said they were in relationships and nearly everybody seemed to have had sex just hours before filling out the surveys.

 

We asked you if you’ve ever placed personals ads. Half of you hadn’t, but 80 percent of you figure the stigma is mostly erased from that activity (online dating sites still make a few people cringe). We asked you if you’d cheated. No, you mostly said (except the guy who answered, “One word: bridesmaids”). But with a collective dash of bravado, you said you’d tell your partner if you did.

You’re all over the map on the question of sharing details of your sexual history—as well as the particulars of your fantasies—with your partners. One 20something man adopts a simple guide: He keeps to himself “whatever might make me look like a pervert.”

A woman in the same age bracket tells but doesn’t really tell: “If I think something will hurt my partner, I don’t tell him. For example, I’ve always fantasized about having sex in the back seat of my old clunker, largely because of a really fun night I had with a boyfriend in high school in that same back seat. Though I’ve told my boyfriend about my desire to make love there, I’m not about to tell him why.”

Other keys to the limits of honesty include “Dr. Phil,” and “a man’s egoand how much he can handle.”

But if sharing fantasies turns you on some of the time, talking about your relationship almost never does. “It makes me mad,” said one 40ish fellow. Talking about sex, another subject of our survey, makes you hornier. And everyone professes to want to know the clinical points of their lover’s history: STDs and other health issues are must-shares.

Carrie Bradshaw may be a fashion trendsetter, but according to the C-VILLE Sex Survey, she’s not blazing a trail when it comes to sharing the details of one’s sex life over omelets and decaf double lattés. Those surveyed prefer to keep the details of their love lives between the sheets.

Said one young woman, “Cardinal Rule: Don’t kiss and tell.”

But another will bend that rule for the important woman in her life: “I rarely talk about our sex life with anyone except my mom. I can tell her those thingsbut I would never tell him that my mom knows. NEVER!”

Yes, that’s the plan. Stick to it.

 

So if relationships are the gold medal, how do you go about winning one? As noted, some just blab about their libido to their friends and the next thing they know, they’re married! Others take different routes. A 19-year-old man threatens to “cruise 29 with the top down and Culture Club on the deck.” One older woman takes a more cerebral approach. She formed what she calls an “intellectual group” with other women. “As a group, we specifically advertise for males to join us to balance discussions at our meetings.

“Resulting from this,” she continues, “I met my partner.”

Some are keen for personals ads and online dating sites—about half of those who responded. But the presumed view of those who use the hookup aids is pretty checkered. “Psycho and weird,” said one woman. “Desperate,” said another.

“I think personals ads intervene with fate,” one 20something philosopher opined. “Plus, why is everyone so hell-bent on relationships?”

But another romantic soul allowed for how “some people benefit from them.” She’d recommend personals, she said, because “my dad met his current wife in the C-VILLE Personals.” Aww, shucks.

A handful of respondents found their own partners, for better or worse, through anonymous listings. One mid-40s respondent replied that yes, she did develop a long-term relationship with someone through a personals ad. “I ended up marrying the ass who answered mine!” she declared.

She’s been divorced five years.

Even among those who say they’d reveal the facts of an extra-curricular tryst to their honey, they don’t take that to mean that all facts on their own dating profiles have to be, er, factual. One woman allowed that, yes, indeed she had lied on a dating profile. About what? “My sense of humor.” LOL!

Others confess that weight and eye color have been interpreted. For others, the lie has concerned employment status.

Don’t get the wrong idea, though. The lying doesn’t have to be ill intended. It can be born of courtesy. “I usually describe my package as being smaller than it is to not scare off women,” said one thoughtful gent in his mid-30s.

 

Could anything ever cause you to call off the quest for partnership, we asked? Sure, you said. Marriage, for one thing. Death, for another. Or maybe, old age.

A 19-year-old lass says she’d hang it up if she were “60 years old and still single.” By definition, she says, that means she’d be done with sex, too, because “I’d be 60 years old. Ew!” To which we say, isn’t that supremely cute! Get thee to Something’s Gotta Give.

Taking a more mystical approach, a 35ish man says he’d call off the search for love in the name of “spiritual enlightenment.”

Another cited “demographic reality.”

There were more emotional reasons to consider the single life, too. The knowledge she’s “better off” without a relationship would motivate one midlife woman. “Relationships tend to bring out the neediness in me. I am not a woman ‘who loves life.’ I am more of an existentialistI get the feeling that men are looking for a woman who is constantly stable with her emotions (I’m not sure that one really exists).”

Yet, though they are messy and leave our hearts open to breaking, most people would seem to prefer a lifelong relationship, even an abstinent one, over a lifetime of sex. We said most people. There is the guy who just wants “hot monkey sex” now and forever. And another guy who just can’t be bothered with “all that talking.”

But mostly the heart wants what it wants. Or, in the immortal words of a gender-unidentified survey respondent: “I’d choose a lifelong relationship because my vibrator or hand may be at my deathbed, but it just wouldn’t mean as much.”—Cathy Harding