crime | I'm Surrounded By Idiots

Sticks and stones may break my bones…

But words will never hurt me, unless a nut hunts you down and burns your trailer down because you called him a “nerd”, from the AP via Fredericksburg.com [photo credit: Ibid]: “Nerd” comment set off former Dahlgen [sic] worker:

A Navy man who got mad when someone mocked him as a “nerd” over the Internet climbed into his car and drove 1,300 miles from Virginia to Texas to teach the other guy a lesson.

As he made his way toward Texas, Fire Controlman 2nd Class Petty Officer Russell Tavares posted photos online showing the welcome signs at several states’ borders, as if to prove to his Internet friends that he meant business.

When he finally arrived, Tavares burned the guy’s trailer down.

This week, Tavares, 27, was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading no contest to arson and admitting he set the blaze.

“I didn’t think anybody was stupid enough to try to kill anybody over an Internet fight,” said John G. Anderson, 59, who suffered smoke inhalation while trying to put out the 2005 blaze that caused $50,000 in damage to his trailer and computer equipment.

The feud started when Anderson, who runs a haunted house near Waco, joined a picture-sharing Web site and posted his artwork and political views. After he blocked some people from his page because of insults and foul language, they retaliated by making obscene digitally altered pictures of him, he said.

Anderson, who went by the screen name “Johnny Darkness,” traded barbs with Tavares, aka “PyroDice.”

Investigators say Tavares boiled over when Anderson called him a nerd and posted a digitally altered photo making Tavares look like a skinny boy in high-water pants, holding a gun and a laptop under a “Revenge of the Nerds” sign.

Tavares obtained Anderson’s real name and hometown from Anderson’s Web page about his Museum of Horrors Haunted House.

Tavares took leave from his post as a weapons systems operator at the AEGIS Training and Readiness Center in Dahlgren, Va., and started driving. Investigators say he told them he planned to point a shotgun at Anderson and shoot his computer.

Instead, when he got to Elm Mott – after posting one last photo of a “Welcome to Texas” sign – Tavares threw a piece of gasoline-soaked plastic foam into the back of Anderson’s mobile home and lit a flare, authorities say.

Tavares’ attorney, Susan Kelly Johnston, said his trip to the Waco area was a last-minute decision during a cross-country trip to visit his parents in Arizona. She said he never intended to hurt Anderson and did not think he was in the trailer when he set the fire.

James Pack, an investigator with the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office, caught up with Tavares after talking to people in several states and Spain who had been involved in the online feud. Tavares’ cell phone records showed he was in the Waco area at the time of the fire, Pack said.

Tavares told investigators that Anderson had spread computer viruses and insulted his online friends for too long, Pack said.

“He lost everything _ all over an Internet squabble,” the investigator said.

Tavares was discharged last year from the Navy, where he earned several medals – including the pistol expert and rifle expert medals – in his nine-year career, said Navy spokesman Mike McLellan.

Tavares would not let the feud go even at his sentencing. According to Pack, Tavares took cell-phone photos of Anderson in the courtroom while the judge was hearing another case. Authorities ordered the photos erased.

Anderson, an ex-Marine who served in Vietnam, said he continues to be harassed online, has been startled by people knocking on his window late at night and found bullet holes in a door to his business.

He said he is convinced the harassment is related to the Internet feud and plans to spend $30,000 on more fencing topped with barbed wire.

“Before this happened, the rule was: Nobody messes with the haunted house guy,” Anderson said.

What a nut, hell just look at his picture. Would you piss someone off that looked like that?

The use of arson was ironic considering his Internet alias was “PyroDice”. At least he didn’t use those expert pistol and rifle medals.

Scientific research? Uh…what’s that?

From Newsday.com: Pol: Subways need policing against pervs [emphasis mine]:

The Manhattan borough president wants more police in the subways to fend off perverts who attack straphangers.

Scott Stringer’s office asked commuters how often someone sexually attacked or harassed them in the subway, and found frightening results. More than 60 percent of those who responded to the online study said they were sexually harassed and 10 percent said they’d been sexually assaulted.

“This whole notion of what happens underground stays underground is just not acceptable anymore,” Stringer said. “Instead of fighting back, people have become afraid or believe that nothing can be done.”

Rush hour was particularly perilous for harassment and attacks, according to Stringer’s survey of more than 2,000 people. Almost all victims did not report the crime to police or Metropolitan Transportation Authority personnel.

[…]

Beyond actual attacks, the survey showed most straphangers simply felt a threat of some kind of sexual incident.

Educating people to speak out, creating a phone hotline for attack victims and more detailed sex-crime reporting could curb underground harassment, Stringer said.

But officials with the NYPD and New York City Transit said they’re already helping harassment victims. The police noted that they arrested 119 people for sexual abuse and lewdness this year.

Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges said the agency already has brighter lights on new subway cars, but Stringer called for old cars to be retrofitted with better lighting. Transit also has already begun installing 1,031 digital security cameras in 61 stations, with more to come.

Stringer sent the results of his survey to the MTA and police. The survey was more anecdotal and less scientific, with respondents being people on his e-mail list and from women’s advocacy groups.

Uh-huh, what exactly was “sexual harassment” defined as? What exactly is a “threat of some kind of sexual incident”? Looking at a secondary sexual characteristic of someone else? Smiling or flirting at someone?

What “women’s advocacy groups” did you get 2,000 email addresses from? Did you get any email addresses from “men’s advocacy groups” and ask any men if they had been sexually assaulted or sexually harassed?

Oh and good job Newsday for putting the key paragraph as the third to last one. You get an “A” for good reporting.

Hat tip: Matt “threat to democracy” Drudge

Ever heard of checking the Code of Virginia before charging someone?

From Fredericksburg.com: Bouncer cleared of Taser use charges:

Charges against a bouncer accused of using a Taser on an unruly patron were dropped Tuesday in Fredericksburg General District Court.

Richard A. Sullivan, 24, of Stafford County was charged in May with carrying a concealed weapon and discharging a firearm within a building. The latter charge is a Class 6 felony.

City prosecutor Andy Cornick determined that Sullivan had been improperly charged after a more thorough review of a state law.

Cornick said it is not technically illegal to conceal a Taser unless you are a convicted felon, which Sullivan is not.

He also said that the Taser does not qualify as a firearm under the felony statute Sullivan was charged under.

According to city police, Sullivan was working as a bouncer at Buffalo Wild Wings in Central Park early May 19 when he became involved in an altercation with two Marines.

During the incident, police said, a Taser was used on one of the Marines.

Later that morning, police said, Sullivan encountered the two Marines he’d kicked out of the club at a nearby Wawa. This time, Sullivan was assaulted.

During the investigation, police learned about the Taser and filed charges the next day.

What next? Arresting a homeowner that shoots a burglar? Charging someone with “discharging a gun in an occupied building” requires the discharge to be unlawful, if there was any evidence of unlawfulness why wasn’t he (Sullivan) charged with assault and battery? Why is it, that the names of the Marines are not released if they later assaulted him at a Wawa? Why is it, that the one that was innocent of all charges is named and has his name dragged through the mud?

To say the least…

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch: Career day goes poorly for Goochland teen:

Authorities apprehended a Goochland County teen Tuesday who they said was impersonating a police officer to get his girlfriend out of summer school.

The 17-year-old youth went to Goochland Elementary School dressed in plain clothes and claimed to be conducting a drug investigation, Goochland Sheriff James Agnew said. The teen told administrators that he needed to speak with a 14-year-old girl at the school.

The public school system holds all of its summer programs at Goochland Elementary.

School officials called the sheriff’s office at 2:15 p.m., and deputies apprehended the youth on school property, Agnew said. The youth’s parents were called to come pick him up, and he was issued a summons for trespassing, the sheriff said.

“We know of him, and it was pretty obviously a silly plan by a kid,” Agnew said.

The incident caused no disruptions for the 280 students in the county’s summer school program, said Linda Underwood, acting superintendent for Goochland County Public Schools.

While admittedly a stupid thing to do, it’s probably good for everyone that they didn’t charge him with a felony which they could have.

I’m guessing the phrase “equal protection” doesn’t mean anything to you… Part 4

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch: Henrico judge to rule on driving-offense fees:

A Henrico judge said he will issue an opinion next Thursday on whether the state’s new fee system for traffic infractions should be found unconstitutional.

In an unusual proceeding that lasted almost an hour, Henrico General District Judge Archer L. Yeatts III said he will decide in a written opinion whether a 23-year-old Henrico man facing his fifth offense for driving without a license should be subject to some $700 in fees in addition to court costs and fines.

Anthony O. Price pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor charge today and Yeatts found him guilty. But Yeatts said he wants more time to mull over arguments in the case about the fees.

The fee structure, which went into effect July 1, is expected to pump some $60 million into state highway funds. But the fees do not apply to out-of-state drivers. Price’s lawyers argue that the law is in violation of equal-protection guarantees in the Constitution.

“There’s no reason why out-of-state drivers should be any less subject to the fees than Virginia drivers,” said Esther Windmueller, one of Price’s lawyers.

Windmueller said multiple opinions are likely on the issue from courts across Virginia as the fees begin to come into play in court proceedings.

Resolution will have to come from the General Assembly or state Supreme Court, meaning that thousands off drivers likely will have to pay the fees before it is clear they are legal.

The saga continues…

9-11 conspiracist charged with desertion

From The Daily Star: Movie creator charged:

An Oneonta man who helped produce a 9/11 conspiracy documentary that became an Internet hit was arrested Monday for allegedly deserting the Army.

Korey Rowe, 24, a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq, was picked up by deputies at about 10:45 p.m. Monday, Otsego County Sheriff Richard Devlin Jr. said.

Rowe, along with Dylan Avery and Jason Bermas, are members of Louder Than Words, a production company that is working on a third edition of the movie “Loose Change,” which contends the U.S. government was involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That edition is intended to be a theatrical release.

[…]

Rowe was arrested on a “military warrant” that Devlin said was brought to the attention of deputies by the Oneonta Police Department, who received information from a source outside of that department.

[…]

After deputies received the information from Oneonta police, they reached out to the Army, and officials from Fort Knox faxed a copy of the warrant, deputies said.

Rowe previously told The Daily Star he enlisted in August 2001. He left the Army in June 2005, according to the Louder Than Words website.

He is being held without bail in the Otsego County jail and is waiting to be picked up by U.S. Army officials, Devlin said.

The Associated Press reported last month that deserters are rarely court-martialed by the Army.

Although 3,301 soldiers deserted in the 2006 fiscal year, there were just 174 troops court-martialed.

Hopefully, they line him up against a wall and shoot him.

Hat tip: The Jawa Report and Screw Loose Change.

I’m guessing the phrase “equal protection” doesn’t mean anything to you… Part 3

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch: Big fines for bad drivers tested:

A courtroom assault yesterday on the state’s new fees for traffic offenses fizzled in a cloud of legal briefs and a no-show.

After a Henrico County judge politely said he didn’t have the authority to address the issue, a Henrico man portrayed as a test case to overthrow the civil remedial fees failed to show up for his court appearance.

“Is Anthony Price here? Anthony Price?” defense lawyer Esther Windmueller asked unsuccessfully, scanning a General District courtroom.

General District Judge Archer L. Yeatts III, who had less than an hour earlier refused to rule on the constitutional merits of the fees, rescheduled Price’s case for Aug. 23 and moved on to a reckless driving case.

That left Windmueller suggesting to reporters that she might have to troll the hallways of the Henrico Courts building for a new plaintiff.

[…]

The fees, passed by the legislature this year, are intended to generate more than $60 million toward state road funds. So far they have mostly generated fever-pitch public opposition — in large part because out-of-state drivers aren’t subject to the ramped-up fines.

[…]

In Richmond traffic court yesterday morning, clerks were marveling at the city’s first instance of a traffic offense that invoked the costly fee structure.

A July 1, noontime stop on Lee Bridge had produced charges of reckless driving and no valid driver’s license for a man court papers identified as Rolando Reyes.

“This was our first one,” said Irving C. Wright, clerk of the Richmond General District Court’s traffic division.

Yesterday, Reyes saw the reckless driving charge reduced to speeding but saw his costs explode.

Instead of being limited to fines and court costs of $317, Reyes had to pay $617 with the addition of the new $300 penalty fee.

And he’ll owe $600 more in coming months in two $300 installments, bringing the total to $1,217.

Had Reyes not had the reckless driving charge reduced, he could have been looking at a total of more than $2,200.

[…]

Besides the fact that out-of-state offenders don’t face the extra penalties, critics say, the fees most severely affect low-income traffic offenders, and collection efforts are expected to clog the courts and increase the number of cumbersome cases that involve defense lawyers.

“People will get lawyers hoping they can reduce the charges,” said Henrico General District Court Clerk Lawrence G. Sprader.

The state attorney general’s office argued to Yeatts yesterday that only a higher court can block the fees. Yeatts agreed, saying that a legal theory of seeking to bar the clerk’s office from collecting the fees is improper.

“The judge imposes the fee,” said Yeatts, noting that the judges control the actions of the clerk.

Windmueller said she and co-counsel Craig S. Cooley will likely take the case to the higher court, the county’s Circuit Court, before the end of the week. Traffic cases from the lower court that are subject to the fees are likely to reach circuit courts across the state, also, as the cases are appealed. That would produce scores of opportunities to challenge the law, lawyers familiar with traffic cases said yesterday.

[…]

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has said he favors waiting for the regular session in January to make the fee structure more equitable.

If there’s a problem Governor, why wait?

Again, from the Richmond Times-Dispatch [photo credit: Virginia House of Delegates]: Delegate does U-turn, now opposes high fees:

Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Prince William, now says he opposes increased fees on bad drivers.

Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Prince William, who 12 days ago defended unsafe-driver fees, now says they should be repealed.

[…]

Lingamfelter declined to say whether the General Assembly should be called back into special session to repeal the bill. That is up to the leadership, he said, but if he came back to Richmond, he would vote for repeal.

Lingamfelter said the bill is “at best complicated.” It also should apply to all drivers, not just Virginians, he added. In addition, he said the fees should be focussed [sic] on curbing bad driving, not on repairing roads.

Twelve days ago, Lingamfelter wrote an op-ed article in which he defended the fees, saying only reckless drivers should be disturbed by them.

The House Democratic Caucus issued a news release yesterday calling Lingamfelter “flip-flop Scott.”

“He saw his support for the abusive-driving tax that exempts out-of-state drivers as hurting him politically, so he put political expediency above principle,” caucus spokesman Mark Bergman said.

A Democrat, William Day of Prince William, is opposing Lingamfelter in November.

Lingamfelter said “real leaders listen, learn and act. They do not name-call, which is what the Democrats do.”

So you admit you’re not a “real leader”? You appear to have listened and learned but where is your act? You’re sitting on your fat ass complaining. Why do you refuse to call for a special session? If there’s a problem Delegate, why wait?

Again, from the Richmond Times-Dispatch: Driver fees about to be tested in court:

An effort to stop Virginia’s new special fees for traffic offenses great and small will get another day in a Henrico County court this morning. Anthony Price has been found.

A legal team had said Tuesday that Price would serve as an important test case to overthrow the fees as unconstitutional. But Price, who lives in Henrico, didn’t show up for court. That left his lawyers, a judge, and a gaggle of media with no case, no ruling and no story.

But Price, located yesterday by a Times-Dispatch reporter, said that he believed his court date was today and he was unaware that a high-powered legal team was ready to defend him.

“Who?” Price said yesterday when asked if he’d been contacted by prominent trial lawyers Craig S. Cooley and Esther Windmueller.

Windmueller said her efforts to contact Price about court dates and her representation likely got lost in the mail.

[…]

Price got in touch with the lawyers yesterday, and Windmueller said he would appear at a General District Court hearing this morning.

Price is facing his fifth charge of driving on a suspended license. If convicted today, he faces $750 in penalty fees in addition to fines and court costs. He referred questions about his driving history to his lawyers.

But Price’s conviction, which his lawyers said they would appeal, would set in motion an effort to end the fees statewide.

A Henrico General District Court judge on Tuesday refused to consider legal arguments that the fees were unconstitutional because the motions were brought before the court independent of a defendant being charged with one of the offenses.

But Price does face a traffic charge affected by the new fees. If the judge rules that the fees are unconstitutional, the ruling will likely be appealed by the state.

The special fees went into effect July 1 and are just beginning to reach traffic courts. They apply to dozens of traffic infractions, from manslaughter to a failed turn signal. They have outraged tens of thousands of drivers.

[…]

A key constitutional issue centers on the fact that the higher fees do not apply to out-of-state drivers, even when they commit the same driving offenses as a Virginian.

One lawyer said yesterday that she would raise the argument that a person from another country, whether in Virginia illegally or on a visa, should not have to pay the fee, either.

The fees range from $3,000 for more-serious crimes such as vehicular manslaughter and felony unauthorized use of a motor vehicle to $900 for having below-standard tires or failing to wear a seat belt while operating a school bus, according to guidelines published by the state Supreme Court.

For now I give a reprieve for lawyers.

What a bunch of geniuses

From Fredericksburg.com: Bizarre chase follows shoplifting report:

Police say a shoplifting suspect ran across Interstate 95 at rush hour yesterday in an effort to elude arrest.

A loss prevention manager at Kohl’s in Central Park notified officers at about 5:30 p.m. that she saw two white males conceal items under their clothes.

When police arrived, one of the suspects was driving a Chevy pickup in the parking lot and was stopped there.

Authorities say the bed of the pickup was loaded with stolen merchandise.

Police approached the second suspect as he left the store and authorities say the man threw merchandise into bushes in front of the store and bolted on foot.

He ran behind Best Buy with an officer chasing behind him, police say.

Authorities say the suspect then jumped over a barrier fence, ran onto I-95, crossed traffic lanes and ran south on the highway median.

A police K9 arrived and finally tracked the suspect near the Bob Evans restaurant on State Route 3.

The driver of the pickup, George Moore, 38, of Spotsylvania was arrested and charged with receiving stolen propery [sic].

The other suspect, Jason Salisbury, 28, of Spotsylvania was arrested and charged with felony shoplifting, obstruction of justice, and use of a controlled access highway as a pedestrian.

Both men were placed in the Rappahannock Regional Jail. Salisbury is being held on no bond, while Moore was being held on a $1,500 bond.

I guess they don’t require IQ tests to be a criminal nowadays.

He must have really pissed off that officer: “Use of a controlled access highway as a pedestrian.”

Hot pursuit in Caroline County.

From Fredericksburg.com [photo credit: Lippa for Sheriff]: Woman faces charges in two localities:

A Fredericksburg woman was charged yesterday with hit-and-run and eluding police in episodes in two localities.

Beth A. Egnar, 43, was charged with DUI and eluding police in Caroline County and was served a warrant for a felony hit-and-run in Fredericksburg Sunday night.

[…]

Caroline Sheriff Tony Lippa said his office got a call about 11 p.m. Sunday to be on the lookout for Egnar. A man had called 911 and told Fredericksburg police that he was following a woman who struck his vehicle and drove off.

Fredericksburg spokeswoman Natatia Bledsoe said Egnar was driving a 2003 Subaru wagon when she allegedly hit a Dodge pickup truck on State Route 2.

Lippa said his department put out two sets of road spikes on Route 2 before they were finally able to stop the car, which was southbound.

Lippa said the car stopped for police at an intersection just north of Bowies Pond with all four tires flattened and surrounded by six to seven police cars.

Good thing Lippa bought those spike strips (at no cost to the county by using drug seizure money).

It’s five o’clock somewhere.

From Fredericksburg.com [photo credit: Ibid]: Frawley’s blood alcohol was 0.21:

The blood alcohol content of former University of Mary Washington President William Frawley was 2 1/2 times the legal limit when he flipped his university car in Fairfax County on April 10, according to court documents.

The analysis from the Department of Forensic Science in Richmond, filed in Fairfax General District Court, shows that Frawley’s blood alcohol level was 0.21 when the accident occurred on Georgetown Pike.

[…]

According to police, Frawley was driving a 2006 Toyota Avalon on Georgetown Pike near Great Falls National Park when he ran off the road and flipped the car, owned by the UMW Foundation, onto its roof around lunchtime April 10.

Fairfax County police Officer D.J. Montgomery pulled nine unidentified bottles from Frawley’s car, eight of them containing liquid, according to evidence now in the court file.

Not only is he a drunk, but he’s a morning drunk too. I guess he hadn’t had time to drink his six bottles of cough syrup yet that day. Due to the fact that his blood alcohol level was above 0.20 he’ll be getting a mandatory minimum of ten days in jail after he is convicted (§ 18.2-270).