Stalking, assault: Charges against UVA law student dismissed

Third-year UVA law student Daniel Watkins walked out of Albemarle General District Court without the stalking and assault charges that had followed him since his May arrest. On August 30, Judge William Barkley granted a defense motion to strike the charges brought by a female law student whom Watkins had dated for about a year.

Barkley ruled that Watkins' alleged threats to kill the girlfriend if she ever dated or had sex with another man were undermined by her courtroom testimony that she didn't believe him when he supposedly made the statements in February.

As for the stalking charge, the judge noted that the former paramour initiated contact when she texted Watkins twice after she'd gotten a letter of no contact from a dean, and that the two supposedly offending encounters– one in the Law School parking lot and the other at a Student Bar Association event at the Foxfield steeplechase races– were "nothing sinister" given that the two attended the same school.

In court, Watkins was accompanied by his law school friend, Johnathan Perkins, the man who admitted to a high-profile fabrication of a tale of police harassment in May, and also by his father, Anthony Watkins, who said after the charges were thrown out, "It's been our prayers that this would happen."

Daniel Watkins declined comment.