And the railroading of Ben Boyd continues?

As you may be aware, Caroline County High School football coach Ben Boyd was indicted on July 1st for forgery of a public record and uttering of a public record. Below you’ll find a story from Jon Burkett of WTVR Channel 6 in Richmond (I apologize if you experience popping in the audio but that’s WTVR’s doing, not mine):

By Major Scott Moser’s own admission “the case is currently under investigation” and “could take a couple weeks” according to Jon Burkett. So, you know, don’t worry about making sure the guy is actually guilty or anything, let’s just indict him. Anyone remember the age old quote about being able to indict a ham sandwich? Perfect example here.

In certain situations, that would be alright. If you catch a suspect standing over a dead body with the proverbial smoking gun, then yeah, you would indict the guy while forensics testing and whatnot were still being done. But this situation takes on a completely different light because the sheriff — the chief law enforcement officer in the county — has publicly and falsely accused Boyd of a different crime previously while displaying zero knowledge of the situation.

And according to The Free Lance–Star (get your own link), Boyd was arrested at the school. That’s right, he wasn’t even given the opportunity to turn himself in. After all, when you have a vendetta against a guy, you want to cause the biggest scene and most embarrassment possible.

Who knows, Boyd could very well be guilty of these charges. But the Sheriff’s Office sure as heck doesn’t know for sure since they have “a couple weeks” of investigating to do still.

And, of course, there’s also the matter of Tony Spencer in this whole thing. He is the Commonwealth’s Attorney after all. But at least he’s been mum to the newspapers and other media stating “This case needs to be tried in a court, not in the press.” That’s a far cry from Lippa’s public announcement of vendetta against Boyd previously as well as Lippa’s personal friend (i.e., Jon Burkett) rushing to do a story about the case for WTVR while parroting everything that comes out of the sheriff’s office.

Yes, they’re friends before you ask. If you don’t believe me, think about this: When does WTVR do any stories about Caroline County? When it involves Lippa and his sheriff’s office. I don’t recall them covering the Gaudenzi case (a 14 year cold case) and, after all, Lippa wasn’t involved in the case, only the Virginia State Police was.

I would love to know why Lippa decided to pursue a vendetta against Boyd, an interesting theory has been suggested elsewhere (primarily on one newspaper’s website) — which I don’t plan on repeating on this space currently — but you better hope that the next person Lippa decides to go after it isn’t you or someone you care about.