Tag: Mike Hallahan

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Parental influence: Borden gets nearly four years for garage attack

Daniel Borden. Courtesy Charlottesville police

He wore a construction helmet that said “commie killer” as he joined in on a brutal beating in a downtown parking garage, striking the already downed DeAndre Harris with a stick until it broke as Harris struggled to pick himself up off the ground.

And though two out-of-town men already found guilty of malicious wounding for participating in the same beating have been sentenced to eight and six years in prison, this one—Daniel Borden, the Ohioan who was 18 years old when he hitched a ride to Charlottesville for the August 12 white supremacist rally—will only serve three years and 10 months.

“I absolutely don’t think my son did anything wrong,” testified his father, retired U.S. Air Force pilot Rick Borden, about the younger Borden’s involvement in what Judge Rick Moore has repeatedly referred to as “one of the worst beatings I’ve ever seen.”

The father, who started his testimony by saying he’d done “quite a bit of comprehensive investigation on this,” told the judge his son was separated from his friends when police declared an unlawful assembly and ordered everyone to leave what was then called Emancipation Park.

Borden joined another group of alt-righters and began making his way toward the Market Street Parking Garage. He picked up the stick along the way for protection, according to his dad.

“I’m not sure that I would have walked out of that park with anything other than an M1 Abrams tank,” said the father. He laughed at the mention of the “commie killer” hardhat, and said it was a reference to the film Full Metal Jacket.

“Back in the day, when I was a B-52 pilot, the Soviets were our mortal enemy,” he added.

A visibly frustrated defense attorney Mike Hallahan told the judge he was “on edge” as he questioned the elder Borden.

Judge Moore then called for a recess. As Borden’s father stood and left the witness stand for the break, he passed this reporter, who was seated in a back row. Making eye contact, he made an aggressive gesture somewhere in between starting a lawnmower and ripping apart a newspaper.

Returning to the stand, in an unusually tangential testimony, the father ranted about other aspects of August 12, including that Harris was allegedly seen throwing bottles of soda that day, and about how “antifa personnel” apparently specialize in “gang beatdowns.”

Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania noted that a lot of the testimony seemed irrelevant, but that he wasn’t objecting. “I think Mr. Borden has a lot he wants to get off his chest,” he said.

And Hallahan argued that everything is relevant.

“Everything is not relevant,” said Moore. “I’m not going to let this sentencing hearing be made about something else.”

Getting back on track, Borden’s father said his son had “tunnel vision” or “target fixation” during the attack. Said the elder Borden, “Dan has no recollection of anybody even around him. He was that full of fear and anxiety.”

But in a video taken after the parking garage beating, Platania said Borden appeared “gleeful,” and that he could be heard saying, “Fuck Antifa. Fuck communism. They got their ass kicked multiple times.”

Prosecutor Nina Antony noted that Borden was half a block away when he saw the beating and decided to join in.

Hallahan, who argued that Borden was drawn to the parking garage because one of the alt-righters was also being beaten in a separate fight, asked the judge to “take out all the drama” and “take out all the politics,” to see that this case is just about a “guy in the parking lot hitting somebody with a stick.”

And the defense attorney said that from the sounds of the video, Borden likely missed Harris with at least one of his swings.

“I don’t think that matters,” said the judge. “He kept swinging because he hadn’t done what he needed to do.”

The defendant’s mother, Kelly Borden, said she didn’t know her son had gone to Virginia for the Unite the Right rally until a friend sent her an article by civil rights activist and independent journalist Shaun King, which identified Borden as one of the men who assaulted Harris. She testified it was “fake news.”

Though Borden faced a max of 20 years in prison, the sentencing guidelines presented to the court that day suggested a year and six months on the low end and four years and two months on the high end.

His attorney recommended the lowest: “Get him out of this community. Charlottesville didn’t want him here in the first place,” Hallahan said.

Antony noted Borden’s young age, lack of criminal history, and voluntary guilty plea, but she still asked for at least the highest sentencing recommendation. She also said she was trying not to let Borden’s parents’ testimony sway her to ask for more time.

Moments before the judge pronounced the nearly four-year sentence, with 20 years of good behavior, and five years of supervised probation after release, Borden gave his own statement—one that seemed more remorseful than his parents’.

He said he cried in his dad’s kitchen when the photos of him on August 12 surfaced on the web. He had only come to town to protest the removal of the Confederate statues, he added.

“I did not know how overwhelmingly against the statues Charlottesville was,” he said. “If I did, I would have thought twice about coming.”

Though Harris wasn’t present in the courtroom, Borden had a message for him: “You didn’t deserve that.” He gave the prosecutor a personal letter that he wanted Harris to read.

He also apologized to Harris’ parents, his own parents, and the entire city.

Said Borden, “I’m truly sorry this has happened to your town.”

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‘Commie killer’ Daniel Borden enters plea, is found guilty

Daniel Borden. Courtesy Charlottesville police

Another man charged with malicious wounding in the August 12 Market Street Parking Garage beatdown of DeAndre Harris has been convicted.

Daniel Borden, whose local TV station and newspaper have said he was known for his swastika drawings and Nazi salutes in high school, was 18 years old when he traveled from Maumee, Ohio, to Charlottesville for the Unite the Right rally.

He entered an Alford plea in Charlottesville Circuit Court on May 21, which isn’t an admission of guilt, but an acknowledgement that there’s enough evidence to convict him. Judge Rick Moore did, indeed, find him guilty.

“His argument is he didn’t have malice in his heart or mind when he did this,” said defense attorney Mike Hallahan. The felony charge carries up to 20 years in prison.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina-Alice Antony—who noted that Borden was wearing a white construction hat with “commie killer” written on it during the attack—said videos show the teenager beating Harris with a wooden object while Harris was already on the ground, which the judge agreed was enough evidence for the malicious wounding charge.

Hallahan previously argued that Borden wouldn’t be able to get a fair trial in Charlottesville, and said at a March 29 motions hearing that the city has shown an “absolute sheer bias” against rally participants by pursuing charges against them but not prosecuting people for jaywalking or blocking Fourth Street during the car attack in which a white supremacist rammed his car into a crowd of people, killing Heather Heyer and injuring many others. Fourth Street was supposed to have been closed during the rally.

After two two-day trials for assailants in the same case, juries convicted Jacob Goodwin, from Arkansas, and Alex Ramos, from Georgia, and recommended a sentence of 10 years and six years, respectively. The judge will formally sentence both men in August.

Borden, who told the judge he’s currently working on getting his GED, is scheduled to be sentenced October 1, exactly one month from his twentieth birthday.

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Bellamy subpoenaed in neo-Nazi’s hearing

Daniel Borden. Courtesy Charlottesville police

Last week an attorney defending an alt-right client subpoenaed a reporter as a witness. This week the same lawyer called a city councilor to court to support his motion that Daniel Borden, charged with malicious wounding, cannot get a fair trial in Charlottesville

Mike Hallahan represents Borden, an Ohio man who was 18 years old and known for his high school swastika drawings and Nazi salutes when he came to Charlottesville for the Unite the Right rally, according to Cincinnati’s local NBC affiliate WLWT and the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Borden is one of four men charged in the Market Street Parking Garage beatdown of DeAndre Harris, who also was charged with malicious wounding, and who was acquitted in Charlottesville General District Court March 16.

In Charlottesville Circuit Court March 29, Hallahan said the city has shown an “absolute sheer bias” against rally participants by pursuing charges against them but not prosecuting people for jaywalking or blocking Fourth Street at the time of the car attack in which a white supremacist rammed his car into a crowd of people, killing local woman Heather Heyer and injuring many others.

Hallahan, who subpoenaed this reporter in a different case, called City Councilor Wes Bellamy, who was vice-mayor in August, to the witness stand to testify about the community’s perception of rally goers.

Bellamy said Charlottesville residents have routinely called Unite the Right participants “white supremacists” and “Nazis,” but when asked if all locals feel that way, the councilman replied that he can’t speak for more than 40,000 people.

As Bellamy hobbled away from the witness box on crutches from a basketball injury, he stopped to whisper something in Borden’s ear and patted him on his right pectoral. Borden nodded his head.

The defense attorney had planned to call former councilor Kristin Szakos to the stand, but reported that she’s out of the country. He entered into evidence a Facebook post she wrote several months ago, when she said it’s interesting that “Nazis” want to move their trials out of the city where they committed their alleged crimes.

“We are not their people,” she wrote.

Hallahan also said the local media coverage of Unite the Right has been biased and not a single positive article has been written about it.

“These are not opinion pieces,” said Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina-Alice Antony. “They are fact-based.”

She argued that the judge should not grant Borden’s motion to move his trial, but take it under advisement until the prosecutor and defense attempt to seat an impartial jury in June. Average jury pools include about 40-60 individuals, but 150 are being summoned for this one, she said.

Just as the attorney for Jacob Goodwin, another accused Harris assailant, did yesterday, Hallahan alluded to “sleeper activists” who would intentionally try to sit on the jury to convict Borden. The defendant’s dad shook his head vigorously.

Borden has been in jail since August, and Hallahan also asked for a bond hearing, which Judge Rick Moore denied because it was not on the docket. A separate date will be set for that, but Borden’s father, a retired commanding officer and combat pilot in the U.S. Air Force, testified that he’s willing to take his son home to Ohio until the trial.

A woman later identified as Borden’s father’s lifelong companion could be heard whispering that Harris didn’t spend a night in jail because he’s black.

Moore took the change of venue motion under advisement until after the court has attempted to seat an unbiased jury.

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Judge takes parking under advisement in August 12 case

Jacob Goodwin, one of four men charged in the beating of DeAndre Harris August 12, was found guilty of malicious wounding. Charlottesville police

An attorney for an Arkansas man who can be seen kicking DeAndre Harris in the face in videos of the August 12 Market Street Parking Garage brawl at the summer’s Unite the Right rally is now asking for a change of venue for his client’s upcoming trial.

Elmer Woodard—the lawyer from Blairs who represents Jacob Goodwin, as well as “Crying Nazi” Chris Cantwell and KKK leader Richard Preston—says Goodwin can’t get a fair trial in Charlottesville.

For one, because jurors are likely to park in the closest garage, which also happens to be the scene of the crime.

And if a judge bars them from parking there, their second choice could lead them to Charlottesville Circuit Court up Heather Heyer Way—the street recently renamed in honor of the 32-year-old woman who was killed on the day of Goodwin’s alleged offense.

“I think that’s a huge problem in seating a jury,” Woodard told the judge. Jurors are not legally allowed to visit a crime scene outside of the court’s control, he added.

But a parking problem isn’t the only reason he said his client can’t be tried here.

Woodard noted that media coverage of Goodwin often mentions Heyer’s death, “inflating” that the man who came to court in a gray and white-striped jail jumpsuit, with a brown beard and long, braided ponytail, was involved. Charlottesville residents aren’t able to be impartial about whether he should be found guilty of malicious wounding, said the attorney.

There’s also the potential for “sleeper activists,” he said—a phrase that Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler’s attorney, Mike Hallahan, said in a motion to change the venue of Kessler’s perjury trial. These people, the lawyers say, would intentionally try to be seated on the jury to convict unfavorable defendants.

Woodard said he no longer pays attention to what’s reported in local media about his clients.

“I had to stop reading [it] because my eyes crossed,” he said.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina-Alice Antony agreed with Woodard that jurors parking in the garage on Market Street could be problematic, but said the defense’s argument that seating a jury would be difficult is irrelevant.

“It’s not whether seating the jury will be difficult, it’s whether the court can seat an impartial jury,” she said. During the voir dire portion of the trial, Woodard will have the opportunity to examine and interview potential jurors, and motion to strike individuals he deems unfit from the jury pool.

Judge Rick Moore agreed that he could seat an impartial jury, but took the motion under advisement to consider the parking dilemma. He also denied a defense motion to exclude evidence.

The evidence in question was a surveillance video of the attack, which plays at 15 frames per second, while all other known videos that will be admitted during the trial are 30 frames per second.

Woodard opened his argument on that motion in an unusual way. In his initial statement, he only actually voiced every other word to the judge, or half the sentence.

He said a video that plays at 15 frames per second shows only half of what happened and would be misleading to a jury, as it was misleading to the judge when he spoke every other word of a sentence.

“You didn’t mislead me,” said Moore. “I just didn’t know what you were saying.”

Goodwin’s two-day jury trial is scheduled to begin April 30.

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Kessler subpoenaed C-VILLE reporter

Two business days before Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler was scheduled to stand trial on a felony perjury charge March 20 in Albemarle Circuit Court, C-VILLE Weekly reporter Samantha Baars was in Charlottesville General District Court, where a deputy handed her a subpoena to appear as a witness for Kessler.

Aside from First Amendment freedom-of-the-press issues, the subpoena posed another problem for the paper’s two-person news team: If Baars were sequestered as a witness, C-VILLE would have no one available to cover a case with considerable local interest.

Local attorneys James West and Josh Wheeler volunteered to challenge the subpoena and, with the support of the Rutherford Institute, prepared a motion to quash, which West filed just hours before the trial was scheduled to begin.

West says a federal court has identified reasons subpoenaing journalists is a bad idea, including the potential threat of judicial and administrative interference with news gathering. “If reporters are regularly subjected to open-ended subpoenas, they would be thinking of that in their reporting,” he says. “It would appear to turn reporters into an investigative arm of government or private parties.”

And as in C-VILLE’s case, it places a major burden on the limited resources of a small organization, says West. “You could be intentionally harassed. If a reporter has done a long series of articles that were not particularly flattering, [the subject] could subpoena the reporter so she couldn’t cover the trial.”

Kessler attorney Mike Hallahan told Baars, who had no first-hand knowledge of Kessler’s sworn statement to a magistrate that he was assaulted, which was the basis of the perjury charge, he was subpoenaing her for an October 10 article in which she’d interviewed Jay Taylor, the man Kessler claimed assaulted him.

In court, Hallahan objected to the motion to quash and initially to saying why he wanted Baars as a witness. “He wanted her as an impeachment witness for Taylor,” says West. C-VILLE was unable to reach Hallahan.

Judge Cheryl Higgins granted C-VILLE’s motion. “She was proactive in recognizing journalistic privilege,” says West.

Reporters in Charlottesville are not often subpoenaed to testify in court, but it’s happened before. A special prosecutor called NBC29’s Henry Graff as a witness in February for a case against Jeff Winder for assaulting Kessler August 13.

In 2007, Charlottesville prosecutor Claude Worrell, now a juvenile court judge, subpoenaed former C-VILLE editor Courteney Stuart, then a reporter for the Hook, to testify in a public drunkenness case.

Stuart appeared before Judge William Barkley with a motion to quash. “I cover crime,” she told the judge. “This is drunk in public—a minor crime. This week I’m also covering a capital murder. Am I to be called to testify in every crime I cover?”

Barkley denied the motion. At trial, Rutherford attorneys represented Stuart, but the defendants agreed to stipulate her story was accurate and released her as a witness. At that time, Worrell said he would subpoena reporters in the future because their role in a free press “does not mean they can opt out of their responsibility as citizens to provide information.”

Such a move “makes reporters an investigative tool of the court or government,” says Rutherford president  John Whitehead. “Not a good idea.” It also compromises journalistic integrity, particularly in instances in which a reporter has promised confidentiality to a source, he says.

“A subpoena can be used to intimidate reporters and lower their profile,” says Whitehead. “It threatens freedom of the press.”

Correction: Kessler claimed Taylor grabbed his arm and got in his face, but not that Taylor slugged him as originally reported.

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‘Unfortunate outcome:’ Kessler perjury charge tossed

After his perjury charge was dismissed, Jason Kessler accused Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci of trying to do a “political hit job.” Eze Amos

 

Jason Kessler didn’t waste any time addressing the media outside the courthouse March 20 when a judge abruptly dismissed a perjury charge against him during the trial.

“[Robert] Tracci is trying to do a political hit job,” he said to the cameras and microphones, adding that he and other attendees of August 12 rally he organized, including “Crying Nazi” Christopher Cantwell, have been targeted by the Albemarle commonwealth’s attorney. “This was an attempt to undermine my credibility so I can’t testify about the city of Charlottesville and their sabotage of that rally that got people hurt. And no one on any side should have gotten hurt.”

Kessler was accused of lying under oath at the local magistrate’s office following a January 2017 altercation with another man on the Downtown Mall. Defense attorney Mike Hallahan made a motion to strike the charge against his client immediately after resting his case, arguing that the prosecutor did not prove that the alleged crime took place in Albemarle County, and that the burden to establish venue is on the commonwealth.

Tracci, who could be heard asking his legal team if they had “any ideas” just minutes before the discharge, made a brief statement outside the courthouse that he was “obviously disappointed,” and said in an email that his office is examining potential steps to take.

“We count on our commonwealth’s attorney to do the best job he can and sometimes it’s not enough,” said local attorney Timothy Read, who was observing the trial. He said the perjury charge can’t be brought against Kessler again because of double jeopardy. “I’m very surprised that it happened here in a case with this much attention. …I think it’s an unfortunate outcome.”

Local legal expert Dave Heilberg says that while all trial attorneys make blunders, the rookie mistake won’t bode well for Tracci in the next election.

“Head prosecutors who are mostly office administrators before showing up to grandstand for their big cases sometimes make these errors,” he says. “Voters don’t forget these unforgivable mistakes.”

The perjury charge stemmed from a Downtown Mall scuffle when Kessler asked passersby to sign a petition to remove then Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy from office for offensive tweets he made before being elected. Community members saw it as a racial attack when the right-wing blogger put his hit out on the only African-American city councilor, and Kessler testified that many people would curse him over their shoulder when he asked for their signature on his document.

But when Jay Taylor approached and took the petition from Kessler, reading it for a few moments and calling Kessler a “fucking asshole,” the man on trial for perjury said he perceived a threat.

Video evidence submitted in court showed Kessler slugging Taylor upside the head, but Kessler’s sworn statement to the magistrate at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail was that Taylor had assaulted him first, by “violently shaking” his arm when he took the petition from Kessler and making “face to face” contact.

In the defense’s opening argument, Hallahan, who wore a long, pink tie, portrayed the result of Taylor’s alleged assaultive behavior by making a swing with his right arm and exclaiming, “BAM!”

Hallahan persisted that Kessler acted in self defense, and that his client’s written account of what happened, made under oath to a magistrate, was true. On the witness stand, Kessler admitted that “shaking,” wasn’t the best word to use and that the “face to face” contact he referred to consisted of Taylor standing about a foot away. In April, Kessler pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault of Taylor.

Jason Kessler addresses the media after flipping off a C-VILLE reporter and pleading guilty to assaulting Jay Taylor in April 2017. Staff photo

Tracci showed a Newsplex clip of Kessler being interviewed on the day of that guilty plea, in which he said, “Man to man, yell in a man’s face and expect to get punched in the face.”

During the perjury trial, Taylor testified he was walking on the mall with his dog and a cup of coffee when he saw Kessler, with whom he was acquainted, and asked to read the petition, even though he wasn’t a city voter.

Taylor said he realized that the petition wasn’t supposed to make anything better, that it was all about creating chaos, and that’s when he handed it back and called Kessler the expletive. After Taylor got clobbered, he said Kessler apologized, asked him not to call the cops and said he was just having a “bad day.”

“Yeah, I was having a bad day, clearly,” Kessler testified. “I try to be [a nice guy], [but] I don’t always succeed.”

It took nearly three hours to seat a jury of 10 men and three women out of a pool of 60 potential jurors, because more than a dozen told the judge that they were familiar with the organizer of the Unite the Right rally and Hallahan elected to individually interview them.

“I will admit that I have a preconceived idea about whether he committed perjury,” said one unnamed juror during her interview. “I believe he lied.”

She was dismissed. Another woman who was relieved of her duties said she knew Kessler as the guy who wanted to remove the city’s Confederate war memorials of General Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.

“She might be the only person in Albemarle County who thinks Mr. Kessler wants to take the statue down,” said Hallahan after she left the room, and there was a brief moment of unity, where the defendant’s supporters and opponents shared one thing: a nervous giggle.

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Kessler perjury trial will remain in Albemarle

Jason Kessler stops for a moment to blame local media for prejudicing the jury pool with its coverage of him. Staff photo

Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler was in Albemarle Circuit Court today with a one-inch-thick motion to move his March 20 perjury trial out of this area, claiming the dozens of news stories included in the motion “demonized” him and made it impossible to get a fair trial here.

His attorney, Mike Hallahan, argued that a January 4 Daily Progress article “basically calls Jason Kessler a liar.” The story about the motion recounted Kessler’s sworn statement to a magistrate that Jay Taylor had punched him on the Downtown Mall as he collected signatures last winter to remove Wes Bellamy from City Council.

The charge against Taylor was dismissed with prejudice after Charlottesville Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina Antony said video disproved Kessler’s claim. The sworn statement Kessler made is the basis for the perjury charge. He pleaded guilty to slugging Taylor.

“The bias continues and continues,” said Hallahan.

However, Judge Cheryl Higgins said the article appeared accurate, and when it said Kessler had been “demonized,” it was quoting from the motion. “I don’t find this inflammatory,” she said.

The motion also said the Unite the Right rally drew “many undesirables from the far right,” called former police chief Al Thomas “a mere puppet of City Council,” and blamed police for the death of Heather Heyer by a “white supremacist.”

Kessler went on to criticize Heyer in the motion: “Charlottesville City Council named a street after her even though she was engaged in unlawful assembly, blocking a roadway and jaywalking, while the Charlottesville City Council ignored the two Virginia State Troopers that died within the same hour.”

Hallahan continued to insist “the media coverage is over the top.” And he saw a further threat: “sleeper activists” slipping on to the jury “because they hate [Kessler] so much.”

Albemarle Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci pointed out that the Progress article Hallahan put into evidence is factually accurate. 

“The court would be hard pressed to find any jurisdiction in the commonwealth not aware of the events of August 11 and August 12,” said Tracci,

Hallahan disagreed about the significance of August 12. “This is a local issue,” he said. “I don’t think [other localities] care about it. They don’t think about it everyday or care about it.”

Despite the publicity here, Higgins said to expect jurors to be completely ignorant of a case to remain impartial “would establish an impossible standard.” Should Kessler be unable to find impartial jurors, she took the motion under advisement, which gives her the option to move the trial if necessary.

Outside the courthouse, Kessler said told reporters they had “already prejudiced a jury pool.” He added, “This media here locally is a fucking joke.”

Hallahan seemed less bitter when asked if his client could get a fair trial. “I hope so,” he said.

Correction: Robert Tracci said the January 4 Daily Progress story was accurate, and was not speaking of all media accounts as originally reported.

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Kessler dodges disorderly conduct charge, man who spit on him pleads not guilty

Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Nina Antony said the city couldn’t prosecute Jason Kessler for his words alone. Staff photo

The Charlottesville commonwealth’s attorney today asked a judge to not prosecute a disorderly conduct charge against Unite the Right rally organizer Jason Kessler stemming from the May 14 vigil at Emancipation Park, after torch-carrying white nationalists marched through it the night before.

And protester Jordan McNeish, who confronted the “you will not replace us” gang on May 13 and who was charged with disorderly conduct after spitting on Kessler the next night, pleaded not guilty. If he stays out of trouble for six months, that case will be dismissed.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina Antony said that Kessler showing up with a bullhorn at the candlelight vigil was protected speech and the evidence “cannot support a conviction.”

Judge Bob Downer did not immediately agree to the prosecution’s request and said he didn’t have to accept it. “I feel it would be a waste of time to reuse the nolle prosequi at this time,” he said.

With the events of August 12 clearly in mind, Downer said, “Freedom of speech comes at a great cost and we’ve all seen that cost in this community.”

Kessler, who’s become a regular in Charlottesville General District Court since he was charged with and convicted of punching Jay Taylor in January, stayed hidden away in a back room until his case was called. After the judge agreed to accept the prosecution’s request to not move forward with the charges, Kessler scurried out a back door of the courthouse.

His attorney, Mike Hallahan, said outside the courthouse that Kessler was exercising free speech. “He broke no law. It was the protesters that broke the law.”

Hallahan also said he had no qualms about representing someone like Kessler, who was chased by an angry mob on August 13. “I’ll take any criminal case from any side of the aisle,” he said.

“Mr. Kessler is a person we have absolutely no respect for,” said Antony. “He’s a very troubled person that we do not think fully understands the damage he’s caused this community and elsewhere, but he was not guilty of criminal conduct.”

In McNeish’s case, Antony said he stipulated there was enough evidence to find him guilty of spitting, but his record did not warrant further prosecution and his case would be put under advisement for six months. If McNeish says out of trouble, it will be dismissed February 21.