Two of the world’s best-selling authors will be sharing the stage at the Paramount Theater in September to raise money for Virginia’s best known fiction-writing politician. On September 24, publishing biz heavyweights Stephen King and John Grisham will talk politics and read from new work to raise money for Democrat and novelist James Webb, who is challenging Senator George Allen in the November 7 election.

However, the event seems to play right into one of Allen’s ongoing lines of attack, which has involved ridiculing Webb’s literary pretensions. In the wake of the “Macaca” fiasco, which has helped Webb to a slight lead in the polls, Allen’s campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, wasted no time getting back on message.

“Since his whole campaign is based on fiction, having two fellow fiction novelists campaign for him is not a surprise,” said Wadhams, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “We’re gratified the Hollywood movie producer and fiction novelist finally made an appearance in Virginia,” Wadhams added, using the same “out of touch Hollywood guy” metaphor that Allen tried to work on S.R.Sidarth, a.k.a Macaca, an Indian-American UVA fourth-year who had been video-taping Allen for the Webb campaign. “We were about to file a missing persons report on him, ” said Wadhams. Ba-da-boom!

Grisham, still favoring short, unambiguous titles that begin with “the,”just finished his first non-fiction book, “The Innocent Man,” the story of Ron Williamson (once drafted by the Oakland A’s), who was convicted of raping and murdering a waitress in 1988 and spent nine years on Oklahoma’s deathrow before having his sentence overturned. Stephen King, who seems to have softened his horror fiction in recent years, just finished Lisey’s Story, a novel about a woman who discovers after his death the secrets her husband had kept from her. According to the Times-Dispatch, Grisham hopes to fill the 1000-seat theater for the reading and discussion.

Tickets for the September 24 event, which starts at 7pm, are $100, $500, and $2100. Information about the event will be available at Webb’s headquarters on the Downtown Mall next week.

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Tomorrow’s Fridays after 5 concert has been cancelled due to the heavy rains expected as the storm called Ernesto barrels north through Central Virginia.

The headliner was to be Sparky’s Flaw, which the Hook music editor recently lauded for a “meteoric” recent rise from high school Battle of the Bands champs to UVA Battle of the Bands champs to playing with Robert Randolph and headlining at Starr Hill.

Another shocking Friday weather cancellation (let’s hope it’s just a postponement) is UVA’s annual visit from hypnotist extraordinaire Tom Deluca. He was to perform in a free show tomorrow in the Amphitheater.

Meanwhile, FEMA director David Paulison has chatted with six East Coast governors including Mr. Tim Kaine, who has already declared a state of emergency in anticipation of Ernesto.

However, in a communique issued just an hour ago, the National Weather Service, which has issued a flood warning for the James River around Scottsville, has taken the Maury River off the warning list and downgraded its Albemarle warnings to “minor to moderate flooding” because it now appears Ernesto will track east of this area. The James, for instance, will crest at 22 feet, just two feet above flood stage, the NWS predicts.

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Jeff Spinello opened his Kinkade-based gallery on the Downtown Mall in May 1999 and closed it in November 2003.

FILE PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO

There’s more trouble for Thomas Kinkade, the famous “painter of light” artist whose mega-million-dollar empire got into some serious trouble for its dealings with a Charlottesville business owner, among others.

In addition to losing a key arbitration decision in February, Kinkade may be now facing an FBI investigation, according to an August 29 report in the L.A. Times.

“I cannot either confirm or deny the FBI investigation, pending the outcome of our arbitration out in L.A.,” says former gallery owner Jeff Spinello this afternoon, when contacted for this story. Spinello, now a real estate agent, alleged that Kinkade’s business practices forced the two galleries he and a partner operated in Central Virginia– including one on the Downtown Mall– out of business.

Specifically, they alleged that Kinkade’s company undercut galleries by selling prints that wound up at Tuesday Morning discount stores and wouldn’t allow returns without significant new purchases of the pricy prints. Kinkade officials blamed the gallery failures on bad business decisions by their own owners.

On February 23, an L.A.-based arbitration panel found that Kinkade’s company, then known as Media Arts Group, and one of its executives, Richard F. Barnett, “failed to disclose material information” that would have dissuaded Spinello and partner Karen Hazlewood from investing $122,000 in 1999 to open the first of their two Thomas Kinkade Signature Galleries. Spinello says he expects a final decision in that arbitration within three weeks. A Kinkade spokesperson alleged “factual inaccuracies” in the L.A. Times report.

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Lethal Wreckage: The embattled towing company gets slapped with a $20 million lawsuit. Plus, Camblos connects alleged school bomb plot to Hitler, wineries cry foul over new delivery law, New Fitness for Ladies shuts down, and much more

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A report in this morning’s Richmond Times-Dispatch reveals that Virginia has now spent $1 million buying legal services in its effort to avoid compensating wrongly-convicted, nearly-electrocuted, and now vindicated rape-murder accusee Earl Washington.

Hiring the McGuire Woods law firm and investing nearly $1 million in its bills has not, however delivered phat dividends for the state. On May 5, a federal jury decided that Washington, the man kept in jail 18 years for a murder he did not commit, deserved to be awarded $2.25 million. Jurors appeared to believe that the plaintiff, a maintenance man with a low intelligence quotient, was goaded by an investigator into providing a false confession.

On August 21, a Culpeper grand jury finally charged inmate Kenneth Maurice Tinsley, 60 with the 1982 murder of 19-year-old Culpeper resident Rebecca Lynn Williams.

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The father of a 16-year-old former Albemarle High student charged with plotting to blow up two high schools has been hit with a contempt of court charge for writing to the school system, Liesel Nowak reveals in today’s Daily Progress (although the Progress misidentified the parent). The parent must appear before Judge Paul Peatross September 19.

The Progress loosened the logjam of secrecy in this teen’s case when it filed a motion and Peatross agreed to open some court records. A July 11 order discloses that the defendant accepted a plea that defers disposition until his 18th birthday and that Peatross gagged all parties from talking about the proceedings.

The teen is now being home schooled. “The school issue is the only issue left after having his name splashed all over the Daily Progress and his school transcript saying he was expelled,” says the boy’s father. “Even with private schools…it came down to what other parents think.”

“I’d have to see the letter,” says civil rights attorney John Whitehead, who heads The Rutherford Institute. “The judge is trying to keep the lid on this very difficult case with motions, contradictions, and things that don’t seem right. The judge is supposed to protect the juvenile, that’s the whole point.”

It’s unclear how the judge got the letter. Is there any chance the parent’s letter to the school system was turned over to the judge as payback for an unrelated but high-profile lawsuit the parent and son waged against the school system a few years ago?

“I have no clue,” says Whitehead.

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Perhaps it’s only appropriate that the same week Bob Dylan released his first album in five years, “a hard rain’s a-gonna fall” on the east coast. As Tropical Depression Ernesto bears down on Florida, Albemarle County officials are advising residents to brace for a rainstorm the likes of which haven’t been seen in some time.

Says County spokesperson Lee Catlin in a press release, “The greatest amount of rainfall will occur from Friday morning through Friday evening with tapering off Saturday morning. At this time, we are expecting 5-10 inches of rain.”

In addition to the potential for flooding, Catlin advises that those in Central Virginia should also be wary of tornadoes. “The greatest opportunity for a tornado will be Friday morning through Friday evening. At this time, Tropical Storm Ernesto is not predicted to stall over our area, but is predicted to pass directly over the Charlottesville/ Albemarle area,” she says.

The Weather Channel’s forecast for Friday indicates that as Ernesto makes its way up the east coast, Charlottesville will be directly in the storm’s path. In fact, the satellite map indicates that in a storm that should stretch from Chicago to Savannah, Central Virginia will get the heaviest rainfall.

Update, 9:47pm: In a release sent earlier this evening, City spokesperson Ric Barrick ups the rain ante. Quoting the National Weather Service, Barrick says that over 10 inches of rain could fall through Friday with some places getting 12 inches.

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George and Kathy Seymour leave Albemarle District Court on August 22.

PHOTO BY WILLIAM WALKER

She was just one family’s pet, but the death of Carmen the cat may soon have an impact on every resident of Albemarle County.

On September 6, County attorney Larry Davis will present to the Board of Supervisors a draft ordinance that, if passed, will strengthen the county’s laws on discharging firearms by creating “safety zones” around homes and other buildings. The move comes, Davis says, after prompting from Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos in the wake of Carmen’s April shooting in the posh Bentivar subdivision.

“When we were dealing with the cat killing case, and we went to try to get a warrant for discharging in a subdivision, we found that Bentivar and many others in the county were exempt,” says Camblos. “We thought that was absolutely wrong.”

While County code has long outlawed shooting in residential neighborhoods, many Albemarle subdivisions have been built in areas zoned rural, where shooting guns is permitted.
Bullets can easily travel between yards, and County Supervisor Chair Dennis Rooker says he fears for the safety of people in such neighborhoods.

“Camblos remarked to me that he was surprised to find there was no ordinance to prohibit shooting guns,” says Rooker. “That motivated me to want to get something done in this area. For the protection of residents in the county, we need to do something that’s reasonably restrictive.”

As the Hook reported in its May 18 cover story, “Claws and effect: Bentivar shooting sparks outrage,” Carmen was a three-year-old black cat who belonged to Klaus and Vanessa Wintersteiger and their two children. On the night of April 24, the family discovered her in the garage bleeding from bullet holes in her neck and front leg. They took Carmen to the emergency veterinary clinic, but learned that extensive surgery to amputate her leg and shoulder had an uncertain outcome, and they decided to euthanize her.

The next day, the Wintersteigers contacted the police, who, by that afternoon, arrested the Wintersteigers’ neighbor, businessman George Seymour, owner of the Import Car Store on Hydraulic Road and Emmet Street.

The case riled the community, pitting animal activists against those who believe the rights of property owners are trampled by free-roaming cats. Though Seymour admitted he’d shot the cat, he claimed it was in response to cats scratching the paint on expensive cars parked in his driveway.

When Seymour’s wife, Kathy, testified that cats regularly scratched the car paint, often costing the couple from $600 to $1,600 per car, titters erupted in the courtroom. One paint professional says cats can inflict damage, but he disputes that figure as the cost of repairs.

“I’ve never had to repaint from a cat scratch,” says Rick Lasocki, owner of Paint Perfections Unlimited. Cats, says Lasocki, “don’t have enough weight behind them to physically scrape all the way through the paint.”

Though he regularly sees “light little scratches,” Lasocki says the majority of the fixes require “five minutes of wet sanding and buffing.” The average cost: “about $60,” he says.

For Seymour, who was convicted of misdemeanor animal cruelty in Albemarle District Court on August 22, the cost of defending his paint proved much higher. He’ll spend 10 days behind bars and perform community service.

“I’d like to see the gun law change,” says Susanne Kogut, executive director of the Charlottesville Albemarle SPCA.

Not everyone is enthusiastic about the prospect of losing the right to shoot in the ‘hood, however. “It makes sense to some degree, but most people who have purchased property in the county enjoy that privilege,” says Vicki Hale, co-owner of Woodbrook Sporting Goods, “so I’m sure there will be some opposition.”

Camblos knows he’ll take some heat, but he says it’s worth it.

“I own guns, and I believe in a person’s right to own and use a gun,” he says. “But given the population of the county and the number of subdivisions that we have, shooting guns in one of those subdivisions should not be allowed.”

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In a somewhat confusing set of moves, Albemarle Circuit Judge Paul Peatross has opened a portion of the court file of the 15-year-old student charged in the school bombing case, this morning’s Daily Progress reports. It seems the Progress had much better success at prying open a portion of the so-called bomb plot case than did the Hook, whose editor/publisher won a hearing but no real access back in June.

According to the DP story, Peatross is releasing details from a plea hearing which suggest that the 15-year-old (now 16) Albemarle High School student (now out of school and jail) offered an Alford plea to a pair of lesser charges than the original double felony whammy of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to blow up a schoolhouse. The report suggests that good behavior might wipe his slate clean by age 18. (Bizarrely, the Daily Progress continues to report his name as if he were an adult.)

In contrast to his unsealing move on the plea, the judge in July ordered that the bulk of the file remain sealed and forbade the kid, his parents, prosecutors, and others from talking about the case, according to the Progress.

County prosecutor Jim Camblos must be pleased with that last development, as he had claimed that a “court order” barred discussion back in April when no such order existed. Three months later, the Hitler-birthdate-wary prosecutor now has one!

In August, one member of the alleged bomb plot won a non-guilty verdict from a 12-member jury in Circuit Court. Now, his family is considering a lawsuit over the prosecution.

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The fence that had long separated the 10th and Page and Venable neighborhoods was symbolically and practically cut open on Monday, August 28 in a ceremony at the new Hope Community Center on 11th Street NW.

The fence, which symbolized the city’s history of strained race relations, had forced school children from the largely African-American 10th and Page neighborhood to walk the six blocks around or scale the fence to get to Venable Elementary School’s playing fields. Meanwhile, no such barrier existed for children entering from the more affluent, largely white Venable neighborhood side of the school.

It’s important to remember that Charlottesville chose to close Venable rather than integrate after the Supreme Court’s 1954 historic decision in Brown v. Board of Education. And when a U.S. District court judged ruled in 1956 that Venable had to integrate, the city appealed the decision. It wasn’t until 1959, five years after Brown, that Charlottesville began to integrate its public schools by allowing three African American boys to enter Lane High School.

While the Hope Community Center should be commended for opening the fence, some might wonder why it took so long.

The Community Center, which is scheduled to open in about six weeks, will have a computer lab, offer drug and financial counseling, tutoring, special classes, and serve as a general meeting place for the community. There will also be room for a police substation.

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Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos, on WINA this morning to discuss the alleged bomber case, revealed a key factor in the decision to quickly arrest three youths suspected of conspiring to blow up high schools: “The ringleader was born on Hitler’s 100th anniversary of his birthday”– and the anniversary of Columbine.

The Third Reich founder became a more significant player in this local drama when Camblos mentioned again about the 17-year-old former Western Albemarle student, “Remember, he was born on Hitler’s birthday.”

The Hook discovered that Academy Award-winning actress Jessica Lange also shares that April 20 birthday with Hitler. She lived in Scottsville for over a decade, but was never implicated in a conspiracy to blow up anything.

Camblos defended the quick arrests of three teens: “This was a conspiracy caught in its very early stages.” As for gathering more evidence, for instance having police wiretap the suspects before making arrests, “That’s absurd,” Camblos objected. “The police didn’t want to miss someone who said, ‘I’m going to go down in flames for my compatriots.’”

Albemarle’s top prosecutor seemed chafed that someone on a radio show call-in show had said that everyone in the juvenile court is presumed guilty, and that Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Darby Lowe, who’s prosecuted the alleged conspiracy cases, has taken some heat. “Darby’s a very, very good prosecutor,” said her boss.

Saturday 8/26 update: Local �ber-blogger (oops– did we just use a German word?) Waldo Jaquith has a little fun with Camblos’ own birthday and concludes, with an astrologer’s help, that if the birthdate fits, you must convict!

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The chief of the Rivanna Water and Sewer authority told reporters yesterday that water use is spiking amid low rainfall conditions and that residents should voluntarily conserve or soon face the possibility of mandatory restrictions a la the summer of 2002.

RWSA Executive Director Tom Frederick, who has long warned that 2006 is droughty, says he’d like to see the daily water use fall to about 12.5 million gallons. That isn’t happening, however. He told WINA and the television newsplex that we set a dubious record on Wednesday: 14.1 million gallons used.

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This is your HookCast for the issue of August 24, 2006. Enjoy the savory listenings.

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Lawyers for Media General, a 16-year-old defendant in the alleged teen bomb plot, and the commonwealth were in court today as Judge Paul Peatross reviewed whether there was still reason to keep the teen’s case closed. The Daily Progress filed a motion that was heard August 1 to open the proceedings, files and transcripts.

Peatross suggested circumstances had changed since a May hearing in which the juvenile’s attorney, David Bruns, requested the hearing be closed to spare the teen further trauma. “We have a young boy here trying to move on with his life,” Bruns told the judge.

“I’m sympathetic that the young man wants to move on with his life,” said Roman Lifson, the DP attorney. “I think that can be said for any defendant.” Lifson argued that doesn’t override the Constitutionaal presumption of openness.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Darby Lowe’s main concern was that publicity about the trial and the evidence could hamper efforts to find an impartial jury. The case kicked off February 3 with a police press conference announcing the arrests of three students.

Comments from Lowe and Peatross suggest that a jury trial may not be in the teen’s future, despite earlier indications that he would appeal his juvenile court conviction of conspiring to commit murder and blow up two high schools.

Bruns told the judge he didn’t object to providing the results to the public. He and Lowe seemed to agree they didn’t want the facts of the case out to the public.

“This press coverage is traumatizing,” closed Bruns. He noted last week’s trial of a 13-year-old defendant, and the possibility of another. “I think that’s enough,” he said. “This isn’t some secret stuff going on in Guantanamo.”

Peatross seemed inclined to open up at least some portion of the proceedings, and said he’d have an opinion in the next five days.

The Hook went to court in June, also moving to open the proceedings. Peatross declined that request.

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George and Kathy Seymour pointed out that in seven years of selling 2,000 cars, they’ve never before been hauled into court PHOTO BY WILLIAM WALKER

It was a shot heard ’round the county, and on Tuesday, August 22, an Albemarle District Court judge fired back, convicting Albemarle businessman George Seymour of malicious wounding of an animal and sentencing him to 10 days behind bars for the April 24 shooting of his neighbor’s three-year-old pet cat, Carmen.

The guilty verdict from Judge Steve Helvin followed nearly two and a half hours of witness testimony, passionate debate between Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos– who called Seymour’s act “disgusting”– and Seymour’s lawyer, Benjamin Dick, who argued that his client had every right to protect his expensive foreign cars. There was even a revelation that one witness called a “Law & Order moment.”
Carmen’s owners, Klaus and Vanessa Wintersteiger, testified about the event first made public in the Hook’s May 18 cover story, “Claws & effect: Bentivar shooting sparks outrage.”

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After more than 12 hours of deliberation, the jury in the Harvey trial has handed down a death sentence to Ricky Javon Gray, the Richmond Times Dispatch reports. According to the report, the jury indicated that it was the killing of the young Harvey daughters, Stella and Ruby, that tipped the scales. (more)

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At 3:39pm, word came over the New River Valley police scanner that police had apprehended William Morva in the woods near the rugby and lacrosse fields near Blacksburg’s Tech Center Drive. He was armed at the time, though there are no reports of anybody being harmed in the arrest at this time. Police are currently making arrangements to transport Morva to back Montgomery County Regional Jail.

Early Sunday morning, Morva allegedly shot and killed a security guard at Montgomery Regional Hospital and then shot and killed Montgomery County deputy Eric Sutphin Monday morning.

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Virginia Tech officials canceled classes at 10:30am today to help police nab barefoot, tie-dye-shirt, khaki-short and white-sheet clad William Morva, an escapee from Montgomery County Jail who’s a homicide suspect. Police have blocked off the southern portion of campus and Tech Vice President Kurt Krause warned the University community that Morva is armed and asked sudents to stay in their residences and employees to stay in their offices.

“We are trying to avoid a massive evacuation that would cause more confusion,” Krause said. “[Morva] has no problem with shooting. I’m afraid that if police and the suspect get into some kind of confrontation and crossfire and we don’t need innocent people being around the area.”

This morning, Morva allegedly shot and killed Montgomery County deputy Eric Sutphin near the Blacksburg Public Library. Morva is also suspected of shooting and killing a security guard at Montgomery Regional Hospital early Sunday morning, where he was being treated in the emergency room. Morva was awaiting trial for attempting to rob a store last year. At this hour, he remains at large.

One person known to the Hook knew the 24-year-old homeless man when she was a student at Virginia Tech and says she was shocked to learn of the killings.

“He was just an obnoxious jerk around town but nobody was afraid of him,” she says.

She recalls that his erratic behavior included long-winded rants “about how we should all live in the woods” and eating raw meat. Additionally, she remembers a time before he was arrested for armed robbery when he got violent with a gun.

“He shot a gun off in a bar in Blacksburg one night,” she says. “And I remember telling him then that this was bad and that he shouldn’t carry around a loaded weapon. Somebody should have done something that night.”

So notorious was Morva around town that a few of his former friends had screen printed t-shirts with his face and the words “William Morva Is An Assh***” (seen at right) and were selling them for $5 apiece.

1:39 update:
Virginia Tech is now evacuating campus in stages. Employees north of the Drillfield have been told to go home for the day. Other staff will get the green light to leave later in the day.

3:39 update:
Word has come over the police scanner that police have apprehended Morva in the woods near the rugby fields at Virginia Tech.

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Jurors in Richmond required little time yesterday– just 30 minutes– to convict Ricky Javon Gray in the horrific New Year’s Day murder of an artistic family that included Bryan Harvey who tasted some measure of fame as a member of the Dads and House of Freaks musical acts. The Washington Post has the sad and horrific story.

In an unrelated story, Albemarle police have reined in the man wanted in a statewide manhunt after his high-speed chase led to the death of an off-duty Colonial Heights police officer. Douglas Michael “Beefy” Brown Jr. was found in the Briarwood subdivision after a Crimestoppers tip, according to NBC29. Among the myriad alleged crimes by Brown was a reported feces-flinging incident when he was once in jail.
(We would have linked you to stories in the daily papers, the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Daily Progress, but the websites of both of the Media General-owned papers are delivering “503″ error messages this morning– their front pages are fine, but no stories will come up.)

[Photos: That's a recent mugshot of Brown at left and a 1984 shot of Bryan Harvey above.]

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Eight months after the brutal New Year’s Day slayings of beloved musician Bryan Harvey, his wife Kathryn, and their two daughters, Stella and Ruby, the trial for their alleged murderer, Ricky Javon Gray, is under way in a Richmond court. Among details to emerge: that Gray and his accomplice, Ray Dandridge, were already in the house when a family friend dropped nine-year-old Stella off after a sleepover. And, perhaps surprisingly, the news that Gray– who has pleaded not guilty to five counts of capital murder– confessed to the killings, saying “None of this was necessary.”

Harvey was best known in Charlottesville for his performances with The Dads, a pop rock group that appeared regularly on local stages during the 1980s. On Wednesday, August 16, jurors heard a recording of Gray’s chilling confession and were shown crime scene photos, according to an extensive report in today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Following his arrest in Philadelphia on January 7, Gray told Detective Howard Peterman how he and Dandridge discovered the open front door of the Harvey’s south Richmond house and went inside with the intention of robbing the family while Ashley Baskerville– whom Gray and Dandridge allegedly killed days later– waited outside.

According to the transcript published in the TD, Gray bound Bryan Harvey with an extension cord and, after Stella returned home, taped the hands of Kathryn and the two girls while Dandridge searched the upstairs for valuables. Gray said when Kathryn and her daughters freed their hands and tried to get up, he “started cuttin’ their throats” before grabbing a hammer and bludgeoning the family.

Gray said he believed Dandridge returned at some point and cut Bryan Harvey, but he said he then hit him with the hammer until he stopped moving.

The crime stunned Richmond, and as Times-Dispatch columnist Ray McAllister writes in today’s issue, “It would be hard for anyone to sit in the Ricky Gray trial and not want vengeance.”

If convicted, Gray faces life in prison or the death penalty.

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Live from…the Hook: Rockumentary spotlights local legends. Plus a retrial in the school bomb plot case, a popular pastor gets arrested for child pornography, and a local man goes to prison for swindling 11 out of nearly $150,000.

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The Daily Progress and NBC29 list a shocking litany of crimes allegedly committed by the Albemarle man who somehow worked the system well enough to remain free of jail to get into an automobile chase that resulted in the death of a Colonial Heights police officer.

Douglas Michael “Beefy” Brown Jr., 36, now sought for stealing a van and provoking the crash that killed off-duty officer James H. Sears last Saturday, has a record that reportedly includes inhaling freon while riding a moped, flinging urine and feces at a jail guard, credit card forgery, auto theft, resisting arrest with pepper spray, and tricking Charlottesville’s SWAT team into believing he’d barricaded himself into a Hogwaller house in March 2001.

The Progress reports that the possibly armed and dangerous white man sports a tattoo reading “white power” on his abdomen. Authorities believe Brown is hiding out in Albemarle County. Left unexplained just yet was what the Barboursville-area man was doing out of jail.

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Jurors delivered a harsh rebuke tonight to prosecutors in the trial of a a 13-year-old alleged bombing conspirator who was supposedly part of a plot to murder students and reduce two local high schools to rubble.

The four women and eight men of the jury took four hours (including a delivered pizza dinner) to find that the former Jack Jouett Middle School student, convicted earlier this year in juvenile court, wasn’t guilty of conspiring to kill schoolmates or destroy two Albemarle County high schools.

The case pitted law-and-order advocates against civil libertarians over the wisdom of vigorously prosecuting a boy whose parents contended that their little one was merely speaking unwisely.

“We really hope that the community and the young man can learn from his mistakes,” said jury foreman Wesley Lewis, shortly after the 9:14pm verdict was announced. Lewis, a heating and air-conditioning contractor, said the jury found insufficient evidence to convict. Another juror, David Maupin, described the deliberations as “tough.”

In this boy’s conspiracy case (his name is being withheld by the Hook due to his age), the cinematic hallmarks of a conspiracy were missing. There was no computer evidence of plotting, no infiltration into the plot by a tipster, no surveillance audio or video, and no turn-coat plotter. The physical evidence was a few standard issue firecrackers and a pair of shotguns hauled from the locked gun case of another boy’s father. And a rough drawing of a propane-tank an older boy sketched in the presence of investigators.
What there was was testimony. Six schoolmates said the 13-year-old either knew of a plot or warned about imminent bombs or shooting. But most of the teens who testified considered such talk a joke, and none revealed such statements about this boy until after the February 3 press conference at which local officials gave many citizens the impression that two schools narrowly averted a murderous calamity like the 1999 massacre at Colorado’s Columbine High School.

In these cases, the students were largely trapped by their own admissions to investigators. And in this boy’s juvenile trial back in April, the boy was actually accused at one point of threatening violence by pointing his index finger at his own head.

The boy’s parents, with him at the front of the court when the verdict was read, leaned back in their chairs and let out audible signs of joy when the verdict was read. The boy clenched his hands into fists, but this time no one was accusing him of symbolizing violence. Defense attorney David Heilberg issued hugs.

Prosecutor Darby Lowe, who won an award several months ago from the Albemarle County Police Federation for her earlier prosecutions of the teens, declined comment on the verdict. But the boy’s eldest brother, a realtor who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, had something to say. He was predicting victory while the jury was still deliberating.

“They were trying to scare us out of filing an appeal,” said the brother. “They’ve been trying to work deals with us because they were afraid to go back to court because their case is weak.”

“How can you tell your child to give up when you’re not guilty?” the boy’s father asked. “You stand up to it when you’re right.”

Although Albemarle County public schools start their fall session in five days, the parents are pessimistic that their son will be allowed in. His now-nullified conviction in juvenile court caused the Albemarle County School Board to issue a one-year suspension. While County schools attorney Mark Trank was present for much of the trial, he was not in court for the verdict. But the parents hoped he’d “do what’s right,” especially since private schools have shunned the boy they considered to be a danger.

The boy’s brother, an Albemarle High School grad, said he and his friends used to talk as recklessly as his little brother. “If you grabbed a bunch of 13-year-olds and recorded everything they said,” said the brother, “you’d have to haul half of them away.”

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The defense attacked the case against a 13-year-old alleged bombing conspirator this afternoon toward the end of his two-day trial in Albemarle Circuit Court, and the matter went to the jury at 5:05pm.

Defense lawyer David Heilberg criticized the Commonwealth’s case, in part, for seizing several computers and then failing to introduce any computer evidence in the trial. Prosecutor Darby Lowe contended that no computer evidence was needed since no fewer than six classmates of the embattled former Jack Jouett Middle School student testified that he’d made statements suggesting that he was aware of a plot to kill stduents and destroy two local high schools.

“Just how is he going to get there to commit these violent acts,” asked Heilberg in his closing statement. “They hadn’t even met. His mom wasn’t going to drive him; he wasn’t going to take the bus. That’s because nothing was going to happen.”

Heilberg pointed out that none of the six students who testified against the boy said anything to authorities until after the famous February 3 press conference at which the school superintendant and the chief of police announced the initial wave of arrests. This boy was arrested two weeks later at school.
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When Senator George Allen pointed to a campaign volunteer for his Democratic opponent James Webb and uttered the words, “Let’s give a welcome to our friend Macaca here” at a rally over the weekend, it was a gaffe so bizarre that it cried out to be lampooned on a certain 11pm fake newscast. As it turns out, the incident not only got the Daily Show’s attention, but Jon Stewart and company led with it on the August 15 episode.

After playing portions of the clip in which Allen singled out UVA fourth-year S.R. Sidarth– who is Indian-American and has been video taping Allen for the Webb campaign– Stewart said it wasn’t nice for the Webb camp to try to capture Allen on film “because George Allen says some really stupid sh*t.” He then brought in “correspondent” Rob Corddry who delved into the more scatalogical interpretations of Allen’s remarks before finally concluding, “It sure as sh*t sounds racist, and here in Virginia, I’m still not sure if that helps or hurts.”

Allen has since apologized for the remarks, telling the Washington Post “I would never want to demean him as an individual. I do apologize if he was offended by that. That was no way the point.”

Nobody’s quite sure what, if anything, Allen meant by calling Sidarth “Macaca,” but it has the Internet abuzz with “Macaca” and “George Allen” being the second and fourth most blogged-about topics on the web right now, according to Internet aggregator Technorati.

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