4BETTER OR WORSE- The week in review
Lowest tax rate: Albemarle Board of Supervisors votes to keep the same 74.2 cents per $100 of assessed value tax rate, which will result in a slight property tax decrease because of declining assessments.
Biggest screw-up: Albemarle discovers it miscalculated when it offered employees stipends to retire early, and now wants to reduce the amount of money upon which people based their decision to retire, leaving many of the 42 who left feeling stiffed, according to a Brandon Shulleeta story in the Daily Progress.
Most horrific domestic dispute: A Greene County woman is severely burned when her boyfriend allegedly pours kerosene on her in her Stanardsville apartment early March 22 in a fire that leaves other residents unable to return to their homes. Later that day, Cordrick Lewis Dade is arrested and charged with arson and aggravated malicious wounding.
Most horrific December domestic dispute: Brenda Canosa is indicted for the December 11 shooting of her estranged husband, Orange County Sheriff's investigator Bob Canosa.
Most horrific January domestic dispute: Former UVA first year Alan Yuan Chang allegedly set up the bowling pin bludgeoning death of his father January 15 to look like a robbery, according to testimony at a March 22 preliminary hearing in Richmond.
Most wanted: Jason Todd Cash, 35 is served with warrants from four counties March 19 after K-9 Officer Bing finds him hiding in a house on Secretary Sands Road. In Nelson, Cash faces six counts, including attempted first-degree murder of a police officer. He's also wanted in Buckingham, Amherst and Albemarle.
Most porn charges: Christopher Michael Watson, 19, of Woodburn Court is charged with 10 counts of possessing child pornography March 16. That same day, Lawrence Douglas Green Jr., 24, of Townsend Court is charged with seven counts. Lorenzo Antwain Carey, 22, of Butterfield Court in Gordonsville is arrested March 19.
Longest child porn sentence: Louisa County man Mark Church, 42, who pleaded guilty to one count of possession in November, is sentenced to five years in prison and 15 years probation March 22. The unsavory images turned up when a friend took Church's computer in for repair, and a technician discovered them and notified authorities.
Coldest rape case: Mineral man George Felix Baskerville, 36, is arrested March 16 for the September 16, 2000, rape of a 26-year-old woman who was walking home from the Downtown Mall toward Garrett Square, Ted Strong reports in the Progress. The victim did not see the man, but his DNA turned up a match in 2006. Police were unable to find the victim, who had moved out of state, until this month.
Worst place to ditch a truck: In the Sugar Hollow Reservoir, which is part of the area's water supply. Fishermen report seeing the truck roll into the water around 7:30pm March 21. Divers find the truck empty, and police believe it was intentionally submerged.
Best news for the YMCA: Albemarle supes agree to pony up the $2.03 million previous boards had agreed to pay for the new Y in McIntire Park. Earlier, Supes Rodney Thomas, Duane Snow, and Ken Boyd had considered reneging on that.
Biggest sale: Perrigo buys Gordsonville infant formula maker PBM for $808 million, according to a release.
Biggest speedtrap: Albemarle police write 139 tickets on sunny March 16 on the U.S. 29 bypass between Ivy Road and Interstate 64. The average for the 114 speeders is 70mph. (We're still waiting for a rainy and/or dark speed trap.)
Latest checkpoint: Albemarle police stake out Mill Creek Drive at the Monticllo Fire Department from 5:30 to 7:30pm on St. Patrick's Day. Out of 832 vehicles stopped, 44 are pinched for traffic violations.
#
7 comments
re: "Most porn charges: Christopher Michael Watson, 19, of Woodburn Court is charged with 10 counts of possessing child pornography March 16. That same day, Lawrence Douglas Green Jr., 24, of Townsend Court is charged with seven counts. Lorenzo Antwain Carey, 22, of Butterfield Court in Gordonsville is arrested March 19."
Wonder how long before these cases get dismissed or they get released? The police are working very hard on these cases and are let down again and again by our local judicial system which doesn't take child sexual abuse seriously at all. It's a brewing scandal and the hook would do a world of good by looking into the number of these cases where our prosecutors and judges fail to enforce the law.
All this stuff about "possessing child porn" is really a bunch of hooey and the investment of law enforcement efforts to catch these people is both a waste of funds and a miscarriage of justice. Drawing an equivalency between the guy 40 years ago enticing the neighborhood kids to pose nude for his Polaroid
and the internet dabbler who downloads images to his hard drive via a file sharing network is just plain wrong. There is all manner of lurid stuff on the internet that you can download and all of it is only digital images. The persecution of people who indulge their curiousity is a witch hunt and what people are prosecuted for is Orwellian in nature since it sort of epitomizes what he would call "thought crime"
Gee, Angel Eyes. Not many are willing to come right out and say that they find nothing wrong with the sexual exploitation of children, but here you are! Thank you for your comment.
Child porn is photographic evidence of a crime against a child. Often it includes the sodomizing of children. In fact, law enforcement usually only enforces the law against the WORST offenders. Your way of thinking is EXACTLY why child sexual abuse is so prevalent. Look into the actual cases. They aren't "internet dabblers".
You are saying that you find nothing wrong with creating and sustaining a MARKET for the images of child rape. You are saying that actively pursuing these images is nothing more than a "thought crime".
Hard to see how logging onto a computer and downloading images of children being raped can only be done through "thought".
Regardless, the state of Virginia disagrees with you. Our local prosecutors and judges need to enforce the law better so that those that traffic in images of child rape are punished.
Wow, angel eyes... worst comment ever.
I do not advocate porn but if I were to get sexually aroused by by watching video of children making shoes in a sweat shop would I not be guilty of the same thing?
I think that we need to draw a distinction between pictures of 17 year old girls pulling their boobs out on spring break in front of a camera and an eight year old being sodimized. THere currently is none and I do not trust the police or the prosecuters to make that distinction if they think they are busting the latter and it turns out to be the former.
Who knows what "angel eyes" was trying to say. When I originally saw that comment days ago I was left going "hanh??" Are they for or against the idea of child porn? It's impossible to tell based on the way they communicated - or rather, didn't communicate - their ideas effectively. That's why I didn't even bother to respond.
Whenever stories appear in the media concerning people busted for child pornography there are no details provided to disginguish exactly what it was they were downloading or file sharing. So readers are left assuming the worst, when maybe it involved pics of 16 and 17 year old half naked girls on spring break, like somebody above just mentioned. I don't know. One would think/hope that law enforcement would only spend time persuing and prosecuting the true deviants, versus the ones looking at half naked almost-legal females. Maybe a generalized distinction could be made by these media outlets to give people a general insight into what the nature of the images were.
"They" is a word that refers to 2 or more people. Same with "their." Knowing that comes in handy if you are trying to communicate your ideas effectively.