An Albemarle County physician facing 11 charges related to sexually assaulting 10 female patients was in court February 19 for a motions hearing.
Mark Hormuz Dean will be tried on multiple counts of rape, object sexual penetration, aggravated sexual battery, sexual battery, forcible sodomy, and abduction, all from his time as a doctor of osteopathic medicine at the Pantops-based Albemarle Pain Management Associates Clinic.
He’ll be tried separately for each victim’s accusations, with the first jury trial scheduled for April. At Dean’s most recent hearing, defense attorney Rhonda Quagliana expressed concern that her client won’t have a fair trial if the victim’s testimony at that trial alludes to other victims in the case.
The defense implied that the accuser will likely say she decided to come forward after hearing about Dean’s January 2018 indictment, and if she does, the jury will know there are multiple accusers, said Quagliana.
Prosecutor Darby Lowe said she didn’t intend to question the victim about any other cases, and Judge Humes Franklin said he will allow her to ask why the victim chose to speak out.
Quagliana also said she should have the right to cross-examine the victim, ask why she waited a year to file a police report, and inquire about her mental health history, prior complaints, and the civil suit she has also filed against Dean “to get money,” as the attorney put it.
The judge said he will limit the cross-examination on a case-by-case basis to ensure its relevance. Another motions hearing is scheduled for March 8.
Matt Quatrara will take over the ever-busy Charlottesville General District Court when Judge Bob Downer retires in a few months.
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New kids on the bench
The General Assembly appointed four new judges for the 16th Circuit, which includes Charlottesville and Albemarle, and two are for new positions to handle swelling caseloads.
Juvenile and domestic relations court Judge Claude Worrell, 55, will move up to circuit court. Before his appointment in 2013, Worrell was a deputy commonwealth’s attorney in Charlottesville for 20 years, and prosecuted high-profile cases like William Beebe, the 12-step rapist. Worrell will serve an eight-year term.
Gil Berger, 60, a criminal defense attorney who lives in Orange, will take Worrell’s seat in juvenile court. Berger took on law later in life and graduated from Regent University in 2000. He says he’s “exuberant” about the appointment, and that while juvenile court is not the most sought-after court, it’s the “most intense” because it involves people and families.
Albemarle Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Darby Lowe, 52, will take a new juvenile and domestic relations court seat. During her 25 years as a prosecutor, Lowe focused on the type of cases she’ll now hear as a judge, and in 2017 she won the Virginia S. “Ginny” Duvall award for distinguished juvenile prosecutor. Lowe got a conviction for the I-64 teen shooter in 2008, but had less success with the notorious 2006 “smoke-bomb” cases in which four teens were prosecuted for allegedly plotting to blow up high schools—and one was acquitted.
Lenhart Pettit attorney Matt Quatrara, 46, is also a former Albemarle and Charlottesville prosecutor. He’s taking the seat of retiring Charlottesville General District Court Judge Bob Downer. Quatrara also served as a federal prosecutor and worked for McGuireWoods. Before returning to private practice, Quatrara prosecuted two well-known locals—including deceased journalist Donovan Webster—for involuntary manslaughter from drunk driving.
Berger, Lowe, and Quatrara will serve six-year terms.
Quote of the week
“Human beings since their creation have not been stopped by any wall.” —Maria Chavalan Sut, a Guatemalan refugee taking sanctuary in Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church, on the president’s declared national emergency
In brief
She’s back
Amy Laufer, a former City Council hopeful who was narrowly beat out by Nikuyah Walker and Heather Hill in 2017, stepped down from her position on the Charlottesville School Board in January and has announced a run for the General Assembly. The Democrat hopes to unseat Republican Senator Bryce Reeves in the 17th District, which includes parts of eastern Albemarle.
Eze Amos photo
He’s back, too
Former City Councilor Bob Fenwick, who served from 2014 to 2017 (when he was ousted by Amy Laufer and Heather Hill in the Democratic primary), will run again as a Democrat. He also ran two unsuccessful campaigns as an independent during the 2009 and 2011 elections.
Search and seizure
Janis Jaquith photo
When police had the Downtown Mall on lockdown over the August 12 anniversary weekend, John Miska was arrested for purchasing banned items—razor blades, Arizona iced tea, and bug spray—from CVS. The cops weren’t worried about the two pistols strapped to him. The Rutherford Institute, on behalf of Miska, says the arrest violated Miska’s Fourth and 14th amendment rights, and filed a federal lawsuit February 13.
Opponent arises
Patrick Estes, a former NFL offensive lineman, wants to be the new sheriff in town. Submitted photo
Former Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers offensive lineman Patrick Estes has tossed his hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination for Albemarle County sheriff. The UVA alum, who serves as regional director for RMC Events, has also worked for Homeland Security and been a field training officer and a narcotics and special events detective. He’ll challenge Chief Deputy Chan Bryant, who already has Sheriff Chip Harding’s endorsement.
10,992 felons…
Can now vote, thanks to Governor Ralph Northam. Since he took office a little over a year ago, his administration has restored the civil rights of nearly 11,000 previously convicted Virginians, who may also now run for public office, serve on a jury, or become a notary public. Says Northam, “I believe in second chances.”
Walk in these shoes
The Salvation Army is holding its 29th shoe drive February 23 and will distribute gently used shoes, which can be dropped off at the Salvation Army gym on Ridge Street. Past drives have collected over 100,000 pairs of footwear.
Oh, dear: City’s culling program ramps back up
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It’s not a good time to be a four-legged woodland creature in Charlottesville. After what the city is calling a successful culling initiative last year, where sharpshooters took out 125 deer accused of creating hazardous driving conditions, Lyme disease-related health concerns, and wreaking havoc on local landscapes, the hunters are gearing up to do it again.
The same number of deer have been targeted this year, and are only being hunted in city parks during nighttime hours. “The operation,” as city officials call it, is “carefully coordinated” with the Emergency Communications Center and the Charlottesville Police Department. It started February 18 and is expected to continue into March.
Here are the results from the 2018 program:
125 deer killed on nine city-owned properties
11 nights of hunting
2,850 pounds of deer meat donated to Loaves & Fishes
Kathy Yowell Rohm. Courtesy Albemarle County Police
Kathy Yowell-Rohm spoke softly as she pleaded guilty May 7 to felony cruelty or injury to a child and operating a home daycare without a license after police found 16 children at her Forest Lakes residence last December.
One adult is allowed to care for a maximum of four children at a daycare, according to state code.
Aside from a four-year-old boy, who was the oldest child in the house, each baby and toddler’s diaper was dirty—some so wet and bulging that urine had soaked through their diapers, clothes and the padding of the seats they were confined to, according to prosecutor Darby Lowe.
Representatives from Child Protective Services and the Albemarle County Police Department searched the house on Turnberry Circle on December 6, after Rohm initially denied their entry two days earlier. Even from outside of the house, they could hear babies crying, according to previous testimony.
Inside, several infants were kept in swings and carseats in a dark room, seemingly without food or water, Lowe said.
“The smell was quite awful, of urine and feces,” said CPS investigator Alyssa Westenberger in a January preliminary hearing.
The 54 year old, who wore a red jail jumpsuit and had her hair piled in a neat blonde bun on the top of her head in Albemarle County Circuit Court, also pleaded guilty to assaulting an emergency medical service provider in a parking lot at the November 24 UVA and Virginia Tech football game.
Lowe said Yowell-Rohm witnessed the EMT responding to a woman who had fallen down. Yowell-Rohm became upset and began acting like a “family member or loved one” of the injured person, whom she’d apparently never met.
She was also written up for public swearing or intoxication, a charge that the prosecutor dropped in exchange for her guilty plea to the assault.
The prosecutor said Yowell-Rohm continued to interfere with the EMT and patient, holding onto the ambulance as it began to pull away. When the emergency worker stopped tending to the injured person to remove Yowell-Rohm, she allegedly knocked him to the ground.
Donald Short entered an Alford plea Friday to involuntary manslaughter of his son, Matthew, 47.
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When then 84-year-old Donald Short shot his mentally ill son to death last November, he said he was defending himself and his family.
The former University of Virginia cop entered an Alford plea to involuntary manslaughter in Albemarle Circuit Court on August 25, which is not an admission of guilt, but means he believed the prosecution had a strong enough case against him to convict him of the crime.
“I don’t feel like I’m guilty,” Short told Judge Cheryl Higgins when she asked if he was pleading guilty because he was actually guilty. A row of seven family members and friends sat behind him in the courtroom.
On November 9, 2016, the elder Short shot his 47-year-old son, Matthew, in the leg and abdomen after Matthew started a violent fight with his other son, Edward.
Short told a detective that Matthew, a drug addict, had been acting strange lately, so the former cop had started carrying a handgun with him to protect himself. Matthew had also tried to kill his brother before, Short said, so when the two were fighting and Edward was struggling to wrestle Matthew to the ground, he shot Matthew to immobilize him.
Matthew died three days later, and a medical examiner determined the gunshot wound to the abdomen was the culprit.
“All I was thinking of was that state senator,” Short told police during the interrogation, according to a statement of facts produced by the commonwealth’s attorney’s office. “He tried to get his son a bed in the hospital and there were no beds available over in Augusta or Highland and as soon as he got home, [the son] went and got a rifle out and killed himself.”
Short refers to Bath County state Senator Creigh Deeds, who was stabbed in the face several times by his mentally ill son, Gus, before Gus shot himself to death in 2013.
Short also told police he felt “destroyed and shattered” after shooting Matthew. He declined to comment after his hearing.
Entries in Matthew’s diary from 2015 and 2016 included phrases such as “my brother, I will kill him,” “I long for the taste of combat and blood,” “breaking things, extreme anger, verbal outbursts, constant thoughts of homicide” and “continued loops of murder rage through my mind,” according to the statement of facts.
Police were called to the Short residence three other times because Matthew was being violent, according to the statement, and a fourth time they were called to a health care provider’s office on Route 29 because Matthew had threatened staff and made suicidal statements.
The day of the shooting, residents of an apartment on Burgoyne Road called for police at 5:46pm while hiding in the bathroom after a group of people allegedly attempted to break into their apartment with weapons.
A female resident of the apartment later picked Matthew Short, or “Crazy Matt,” as she called him, out of a lineup during a follow-up investigation. She said he had gotten into an argument with her about drugs on November 7, and threatened her with an ax and said he’d “be back.”
The woman told police she had heard a noise outside her door November 9 and she could see a group of people waiting. She saw Matthew charge at the door and say, “We’re coming in by the hair of my chinny chin chin. I told you we’re coming back,” while holding a yellow and black ax and some rope. She told police she was familiar with Matthew, because he’d been in her apartment before, and they called him Crazy Matt because he “talked about killing people, talked to the lord, could see the devil and would go into a corner of a room, look up and say, ‘Do y’all see that?’ when nothing was there,” according to the statement of facts.
“He always carries weapons around—big hunting knives, axes and hatchets and stuff,” Short told police during the investigation, before Matthew died. “That scares the hell out of me too. I’m always afraid to go near him unless he’s in a real quiet, calm mood. …I worry about him when he starts to act out like that. I got to watch out what he’s got in his back pocket, so to speak, so that’s why I keep the gun in my pocket just in case.”
He also discussed how Matthew’s mental illness and constant violence affected him. “It’s terrible because you love somebody, but you dislike the person they’ve become and you’re afraid of him at the same time.”
