Month: May 2006

The 15-year-old Albemarle County High School student found guilty of plotting with three other teens to use explosives on two area high schools has been allowed by an Albemarle County Circuit Court judge to return home to his family. Reached for comment, neither the teen’s mother, nor his lawyer, David Bruns, would comment on why the court decided that the 15-year-old could—or should—go home, because the case remains closed to the public. The teen’s mother did say that her son is home permanently, and that she and her husband have plans to home-school him. She says that he needs to catch up on the last quarter of 10th grade since he’s fallen behind due to his legal woes. He will have the summer off and then, his mother says, will continue his 11th grade studies at home in the fall. She also says that, “He’s doing great. He’s doing very well,” and that both she and her husband are pleased with the outcome.
The teen was sentenced to the Department of Juvenile Corrections in April and was originally scheduled for a review hearing to determine the exact length of his sentence on May 23. His sentencing hearing was the first time the public had any access to the case that began in March and was closed for its entirety. At the hearing, the courtroom was packed with friends and supporters, and his psychiatrist described him as “altruistic, kind and generous.” This description stood in stark contrast to the prosecution’s take on events. Their case was based largely on statements the teen made to police without a lawyer or parents present. He reportedly said, “We were just going to go to school and kill everyone we knew except for our friends.”—Nell Boeschenstein

After two weeks of testimony in federal court, a jury came back with a guilty verdict for Louis Antonio Bryant on Monday morning, May 22. The ringleader of the Charlottesville gang the Westside Crew, otherwise known as Project Crud, was found guilty of racketeering and one count of attempted murder. He faces life in prison. The Westside Crew sold marijuana and cocaine, specifically in the 10th and Page neighborhood, for the better part of the 1990s. All told, 28 people have reached plea deals in the case, including Bryant’s codefendants, dating back to when the case first went to trial in November. A mistrial was declared in that trial just before the jury went into deliberations, when one juror overheard another discussing a Daily Progress article about the case.—Nell Boeschenstein

Raja Jabbour was the girls’ junior varsity head soccer coach at Albemarle High until he was dismissed from duties on May 2, six days after his April 26 arrest and almost two weeks after he was indicted by a grand jury for possession of child pornography. He remains behind bars pending a third hearing in federal court to determine whether he will
be released on a $50,000 conditional bond.
“Possession of child pornography [is] a crime that victimizes our children each and every time the images are viewed,” says U.S. Attorney John Brownlee. “Keeping our children safe from sexual predators is one of our highest priorities.”
According to a brief filed by Brownlee, more serious charges will probably be added to the porn possession charge, which alone holds a maximum statutory penalty of 10 years. That brief cites images and online conversations discovered on Jabbour’s computers, as well as evidence collected by an undercover agent.
Jabbour, who operates a local import-export business, Hannibal Enterprises Inc., allegedly traveled to Ohio to meet a woman he thought was interested in having him sexually initiate her 7- and 12-year-old daughters. In fact, the woman was an undercover cop, and Jabbour was arrested and held for questioning January 18, 2004. In online discussions with the officer, Jabbour allegedly wrote about a prior sexual relationship with an adult woman and her 10-year-old daughter. According to the brief, Jabbour admitted to searching for, observing and recording webcam videos of adults having sex with infants, adults having sex with children, and children having sex with children. He also admitted to transmitting child pornography.
The brief also details lurid online chats with girls claiming to be as young as 12. Using the screen name “kenny_scores13,” Jabbour allegedly manipulated a 12-year-old into sending videos of her masturbating by claiming he would be angry with her if she didn’t record herself as he suggested. A week prior to his arrest in April, Jabbour allegedly suggested the same girl film herself in an act of bestiality with her dog.
Albemarle County schools released a statement confirming that Jabbour had been the JV girls’ head coach and was not part of the teaching staff. They would not elaborate on the matter, including why it took six days to fire him following his arrest. Schools attorney, Mark Trank, did not return calls by press time. Neither did Jabbour’s attorney, Rhonda Quagliana.
Diane Behrens, executive director of support services for County schools, says that per State law, the school system conducts fingerprinting and criminal background checks for full-time or part-time hires.
Jabbour has also been a coach for Monticello United Soccer Club. Prior to the fall of 2002, he served as a coach for the Soccer Organization of Charlottesville-Albemarle (SOCA), when he was released for unrelated reasons.—Will Goldsmith

As summer approaches, City and County officials are supposed to be coming up with a coordinated drought-management plan that will set usage restrictions in case of a water shortage. They haven’t gotten the job done, but recent rains have eased fears of a summertime drought.
So far, slightly more than nine inches of rain have fallen on Central Virginia in 2006. That’s far below the 17.6 inches meteorologists say is normal for this time of year. Yet in a report to the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority board of directors last week, RWSA Director Thomas Frederick said local officials are off the hook—for now. Stream flows are still abnormally low, but the area’s four reservoirs are full, said Frederick. “We don’t need action from elected officials in the month of June,” he said. “We’ll keep watching the situation and advise accordingly.”
In his report, Frederick said he hopes that local officials will agree on a drought-management plan soon, because a dry summer could still leave us thirsty this fall.
It’s been nearly four years since the Drought of 2002, when critics questioned the effectiveness of water restrictions that seemed more symbolic than practical (such as closing commercial car washes, even though they account for a small fraction of the city’s total water use). For now, the official drought-management plan is easy to follow: Pray for rain.—John Borgmeyer

RWSA Director Thomas Frederick says recent rain has spared us from a drought, for now, but he’s encouraging City and County officials to agree on a drought-management strategy. Hey, give ’em a break, Tom—it’s only been four years since the last drought.

The 17 students who took over UVA’s Madison Hall for four days in April are off the hook on their trespassing charges. On Monday, May 23, Judge Robert Downer in Charlottesville General District Court dismissed the charges against all the students. He said that because UVA Chief Financial Officer Leonard Sandridge had told the students that they had five minutes to vacate the building, and yet UVA police began arresting students before that five minutes was up, that the case had to be dismissed on lack of grounds. The judge also said that the University had been sending mixed messages to the students, by agreeing to have a dialogue with them, then having them arrested.
University spokeswoman Carol Wood told C-VILLE that UVA is “totally fine” with Downer’s ruling. “I don’t want to respond to what the judge said. It is out there and he has delivered a clear statement on the case,” Wood said. “There shouldn’t be an adversarial role between the students and the University,” she added. “The door continues to be open.”
In a separate case, UVA anthropology professor Wende Marshall was found guilty of trespassing because the judge said that she had been told specifically that she could not go in Madison Hall.—Nell Boeschenstein

When William Harvey arrived at UVA in November, the campus was still in full boil over a series of racial incidents—epithets yelled from a passing car, racial slurs anonymously scrawled on dry erase boards. Students marched for “tolerance,” and President John Casteen hired Harvey as UVA’s first vice president and chief officer for diversity and equity.
Things have cooled down since then. “The perspective I have now is that the circumstances last fall were aberrations,” says Harvey. “They were not at all supported by the great majority of students here.”
Yet UVA still struggles with racial issues. Top administration still seems concerned about UVA’s reputation among potential students as a school with a race problem; meanwhile, tension between UVA students and Charlottesville’s local African-American community is an ongoing concern, as it is in most college towns, Harvey says.
Harvey says he spent his first full semester at UVA meeting with various student and community groups, and in the coming months he expects to start taking more action. One of the first major efforts will be a national symposium on race and society to be held at UVA in November. The theme of the first symposium will be Hurricane Katrina; next year it will be health disparities. “The idea is to position the University as a place where people understand that on an annual basis we’re going to have thoughtful, important discussions on topics of racial importance,” says Harvey.
Also, Harvey says he wants to focus on increasing the percentage of minority faculty on the tenure track at UVA. According to a fall 2005 report from Harvey’s office, 4 percent of UVA’s 1,481 tenured and tenure-track faculty is African-American, while 1 percent is Hispanic. According to the NAACP, the national college average for full-time black faculty is about 5 percent (a figure that includes all-black colleges) while the national percentage of Hispanic full-time faculty is about 2.6 percent.
“The figures are lower than we’d like for an institution of this caliber,” says Harvey. “We’re certainly interested in increasing our representation of faculty of color.”—John Borgmeyer