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photo by Adam SorensenOnly four days after pleading not guilty, Tony Taylor– a co-defendant of Michael Vick– returned to federal court in Richmond today to plead guilty as part of a plea deal, CNN reports. The 34-year-old Hamptonian has reportedly agreed to fully cooperate with the investigation of the dogfighting ring in which Vick and his two co-defendants allegedly participated. He will be sentenced December 14.

At Vick’s arraignment on Thursday, Judge Henry Hudson set a trial date for November 26. Tensions ran as thick as the Richmond humidity that day, as hundreds of protesters camped out across the street from the Lewis F. Powell Jr. Courthouse for hours to express their outrage at Vick in person. The Hook was there to capture the spectacle and has made it available in a slide show.
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WINA radio is reporting today that the main house at Fairview, the 660-acre Scottsville-area farm formerly owned by Jack Manahan, the late Charlottesville eccentric married to faux czarina Anna “Anastasia” Anderson, was gutted in an early morning fire. Pictures on the AM station’s website indicate that the structure lost much of its roof in the two-alarm conflagration. The farm was the key asset in Manahan’s will, which was disputed by some of his relatives after his death in 1990. Ultimately, however, Althea Hurt prevailed in the Virginia Supreme Court and got to keep Manahan’s property. Manahan was the subject of the Hook’s July 5 cover story.
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Charlottesville police chief Tim Longo announced this morning that following an assault last night on a 34-year-old man, officers arrested two 15-year-old males who could be connected to the recent rash of assaults in the downtown area. In a press release, Longo says his department is investigating “any possible connections to other recently reported assaults in the Charlottesville area that are similar in nature.”

According to the CPD’s account, at around 7:39pm officers responded to a reported assault near (more)

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UVA reports that longtime faculty member John Graham, widower to Alexandra Ripley, who penned the sequel to Gone with the Wind, has died. Ripley, originally from Charleston, whose foibles she covered in previous novels, shot to fame in 1991 upon the release of Scarlett, the critically maligned but hugely successful sequel to the classic Southern plantation novel by Margaret Mitchell. Graham’s career was influential in bursting the then widely accepted pseudo-science of physiognomy.

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Last night, on a balmy evening on the bustling Downtown Mall, a decidedly, unhip, un-age-conscious crowd of nearly 1,500 moseyed in to witness the voice of a country generation, Randy Travis.
Not only did he did not disappoint, he stunned.
The 50-something singer has the pipes of someone half his age, and presents a musical experience that is produced but not campy, simple but not lacking fullness.
Backed by an eight-piece band, many of whom (more)

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As quarterback for the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, Michael Vick has seen his share of screaming crowds, but none like the one he saw this afternoon. After weeks of media reports about his part in an alleged dogfighting ring, the former Virginia Tech standout pled “not guilty” in federal court in Richmond and faced hundreds of animal rights protesters who came to express their anger about Vick’s alleged activities.

The Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals had organized most of the protesters, some of whom were camped out across the street from the courthouse as early as 7am.

“This doesn’t begin or end with Michael Vick,” said PETA youth outreach manager Caleb Wheeldon. “It’s about 40,000 people who fight dogs in this country. This is a unique opportunity for us to speak for the dogs.”

That speech came in the form of (more)

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