4BETTER OR WORSE- The week in review

Published online 9:00am Thursday Nov 26th, 2009
and in print issue #0847 dated Thursday Nov 26th, 2009

Latest homeowner association alleged embezzlement: Mill Creek's longtime treasurer, Kevin O'Connor, is charged with swiping $10,000, according to the Daily Progress. Earlier this year, Glenmore's treasurer Mike Comer disappeared after $666,000 was missing from that association's account.

Least competitive: UVA Medical Center adds a non-compete clause to the contracts of its 800 docs, which means pediatricians and family medicine practitioners can't work within 15 miles for a year after leaving UVA and that departing specialists must head outside a 50-miles radius. Brian McNeill has the story in the Progress.

Least sustainable architecture: Mr. Jefferson's U scraps three more '60s-era dorms– Tuttle, Lile, and Dunnington– in 2014-2015 plans. They follow the razing of Balz, Dobie, and Watson over the summer; Maupin and Webb demolitions remain on the horizon.

Skeeviest porn plea: Wayne Edward Gill, 39, of Stuarts Draft pleads guilty November 16 to luring a 17-year-old girl to the "sex room" at Gill's Auto Body in Staunton to perform for a homemade video for $300, according to the News Virginian. Gill gets a suspended sentence and must register as a sex offender. A 17-year-old male acquaintance of the victim who filmed the oral sex is charged with producing child pornography.

Skeeviest alleged rape: A Charlottesville jury convicts Mark Dwayne Bishop, 27, of the rape and aggravated sexual battery of a 13-year-old relative on a tarp in a shed at the Carlton Mobile Home Park sometime between January and July 2008, Tasha Kates reports in the DP. The jury recommends a 27-year sentence with their November 20 verdict, and Bishop says he wants to appeal.

Worst hand: A woman charged with prostitution would be given playing cards that indicated how long the sessions would be, according to Commonwealth's Attorney Denise Lunsford in court November 17, Tasha Kates reports. Elizabeth Huertas Rondon's alleged pimp, Santos Virgilio Lemus, pleads guilty to receiving earnings from prostitution and gets a one-year active prison sentence. The pair were busted in June in Lemus' Commonwealth Drive apartment, one day after Rondon, 37, arrived from Washington, D.C. She was found guilty in absentia in July.

Windiest: Albemarle Planning Commission okays backyard wind turbines November 17, and the green machines go to the Board of Supervisors December 9 for approval.

Biggest pile-up: A Lexus driven by Jerry Dean Martin Jr. plows into a minivan, causes a Mitsubishi to overturn and the strikes a tractor trailer on U.S. 29 north near the National Ground Intelligence Center on Boulders Road November 18. Martin flees on foot and is apprehended with the assistance of the Department of Defense police, according to a release.

Best top-security clearance job ops: The Defense Intelligence Agency brings 800 employees and a $64 million payroll to its new digs at Rivanna Station when it joins fellow spies at NGIC, Bryan McKenzie reports in the DP.

Best gift: John and Tussi Kluge donate $3 million to UVA Health System to support compassionate end-of-life care.

Biggest bomb scare: A briefcase found November 19 at the 11th Street parking garage near UVA Medical Center closes the garage for two hours. Albemarle police's bomb-sniffing canine Drak indicates, but an X-ray of the revealing it's a toolbox.

Best blow-up: UVA engineering PhDs Adam Malcom and Scott Kasen pull in $20,000 in start-up capital for an inflatable life-preserving belt when they win the first UVA Entrepreneurship Cup.

Most eye-catching hold-up accessories: Richmonder Garland Thomas Carr, 27, is arrested four days after allegedly robbing the East High Street Wachovia November 17 while sporting a red-and-black tasseled cap. The suspect in the Pantops BB&T heist the next day, Joseph Carroll Breeden, 32, of Gordonsville, allegedly sports a surgical-style mask.