Across Virginia
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A former Tidewater Virginia sheriff was sentenced Friday to 12 years in prison for bribery and money laundering.
Former Norfolk Sheriff Bob McCabe apologized to the court before the sentence was issued, news outlets reported. McCabe was ordered into custody in August after he was convicted of 11 counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.
McCabe served as Norfolk’s sheriff from 1994 to 2017. He was already under federal investigation when he abruptly resigned in 2017 and was indicted two years later.
McCabe was accused of using his position to solicit bribes and campaign donations from people linked to two companies that had large Norfolk City Jail contracts. While McCabe admitted violating campaign finance laws and getting loans and gifts from businessmen, he denied taking bribes. He testified that he consistently waited until the last minute to file campaign finance reports and probably failed to report some contributions and expenditures, but claimed it was never intentional.
U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen disputed McCabe’s claims that he’d simply made mistakes, calling his bribery scheme “sophisticated and very intricate.”
“In the court’s opinion, you were guilty beyond all doubt,” Allen said. “It’s not a mistake, it’s a crime — a 22-year crime.”
All Carilion Clinic facilities will return to pre-pandemic visitor policies as of Monday, May 23 with exceptions for COVID-19 patients.
“Having family and friends at the bedside is a huge benefit for our patients, and we’re excited to be able to offer that again,” said Michael Abbott, Pharm.D., senior vice president for hospital operations. “Safety of our staff and patients remains our top priority. Visitors will still be asked to mask, safety precautions like social distancing remain in place, and we continue to monitor the spread of COVID-19 should we need to make future adjustments.”
Visitors should not visit a patient if they are sick, have symptoms of COVID-19 or have been exposed to someone with known or suspected COVID-19 within the past 10 days. Screening signs are located at every entrance, and visitors are asked to review the instructions before entering to ensure it is safe for them to visit.
Visitors for patients confirmed or suspected to have COVID-19 are still restricted to no visitors for adults with the exception of end-of-life care, medical necessity or patients in labor, and two parents or guardians for pediatric patients.
“Vaccines remain critical in ensuring that we minimize the spread of COVID-19 in our community,” said Abbott.
Vaccines are readily available across our community. Please consider getting vaccinated and boosted to best protect yourself against COVID-19. If you are 50+ or immunocompromised, it is important to get your second booster to further extend protection. Visit vaccinate.virginia.gov to find a vaccine near you.
Visit CarilionClinic.org/visitor-guidelines for more information.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Federal officials have accused a company that runs a Virginia facility breeding dogs for research of violating animal welfare law and recently seized at least 145 beagles found to be in “acute distress,” according to a lawsuit filed Thursday.
The Envigo RMS facility in Cumberland County has been under increasing scrutiny for months, drawing concerns from animal rights groups, members of Congress and Virginia lawmakers, who passed animal welfare measures this year intended to tighten up the facility’s requirements and strengthen state oversight.
Repeated federal inspections since Envigo acquired the facility in 2019 have resulted in dozens of violations, including findings that dogs had received inadequate medical care and insufficient food, were housed in filthy conditions, and some had been euthanized without first receiving anesthesia. Hundreds of dogs have also been found dead at the facility, according to inspections.
“Despite being on notice since July 2021 that the conditions at its Cumberland facility fall far below the (Animal Welfare Act’s) minimum standards, Envigo has failed to take the necessary steps to ensure that all of the beagles at its facility are provided humane care and treatment and that the Cumberland facility is operating in compliance with the (act),” said the complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia.
Court records do not list an attorney for Envigo. A spokesman said the company was working on a statement and would have a response at some point Friday.
According to the complaint, agents from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General and other law enforcement officers began executing a federal search warrant at the facility Wednesday. As of Thursday’s filing of the complaint, 145 dogs and puppies veterinarians found to be in acute distress had been sized, the lawsuit said.
The government is requesting that a judge declare Envigo has repeatedly violated the Animal Welfare Act and restrain the company from further violations.
“Envigo is failing to meet the minimum standards for handling and housing the beagles, resulting in the unnecessary suffering and, at times, death of beagles at the Cumberland Facility,” the complaint said.
According to the complaint, the facility has housed up to 5,000 beagles since July 2021. It alleged staffing has been “paltry” and the attending veterinarian has failed to provide and oversee adequate care.
“Rather than spend the money to meet the minimum standards … Envigo has employed a paltry number of employees and elected to euthanize beagles or allowed beagles to die from malnutrition, treatable and preventable conditions, and injuries resulting from beagles being housed in overcrowded and unsanitary enclosures or enclosures that contain incompatible animals,” the complaint said.
It cites a finding from a July 2021 inspection report that found Envigo had euthanized dozens of beagles over the course of months rather than provide care for injuries caused when a body part like an ear or tail was pulled through a kennel wall by a dog next door.
As for the dogs that have been found dead, the complaint alleges animal care technicians with no formal training are allowed to make the decision about whether a necropsy should be performed.
Medical records reviewed during the July 2021 inspection indicated that for 173 puppies, Envigo staff could not identify a cause of death because the bodies had already begun decomposing.
The complaint noted that inspectors have found unsanitary conditions, including an “extensive, widespread pest problem,” overcrowded enclosures and buildups of feces, urine and other waste.
Envigo, which has a business mailing address in Indiana, registered as a Virginia LLC in 2019, the complaint said. It acquired LabCorp’s Covance Research Products business, including the Cumberland facility, in June 2019.
The company has worked to make improvements at the site, including reducing the total number of dogs on site, raising pay, increasing staff training and enhancing cleaning processes, according to a statement a spokesman provided The Associated Press earlier this year.
In March, Virginia’s U.S. senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, called for federal inspectors to strip the facility of its license. And a month earlier, U.S. Rep. Elaine Luria and six other representatives wrote to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, raising similar concerns about why Envigo’s license had not been suspended.
PETA, the Norfolk-based animal rights group, conducted a months-long undercover investigation into the facility in 2021 and filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in October of that year, prompting inspections, senior vice president Daphna Nachminovitch said Friday. The group has been sounding the alarm about the facility for months.
Nachminovitch credited federal officials for “finally” taking “decisive action.”
“PETA finds suffering like this every time we crack open an operation like Envigo, and this needs to be the beginning of the end for this hideous beagle-breeding mill,” Nachminovitch said in a statement.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A federal jury convicted on Friday three members of a Virginia family of conspiring to coerce another family member to perform domestic services by verbally assaulting and physically abusing the victim over 12 years, according to a federal prosecutor.
Zahida Aman, 80; Mohammed Rehan Chaudhri, 48, and Mohammad Nauman Chaudhri, 54, each were convicted of conspiracy to commit forced labor, Jessica D. Aber, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a news release.
Evidence and court records showed that in 2002, the victim married Aman’s son and the brother of defendants Nauman and Rehan Chaudhri. The woman lived in the home of the defendants, and over the next 12 years, the three defendants forced her to perform domestic services.
The victim, a native of Pakistan, had temporary immigration status in the U.S., but Aman took the victim’s immigration documents and also threatened her with deportation if she didn’t obey their demands, prosecutors said. The defendants also threatened to separate the victim from her children to coerce her labor, according to the news release.
A sentencing date for the three has not been set yet.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) – A federal judge has ruled that a lawsuit against two former police officers accused of protecting a sex trafficking ring in northern Virginia in exchange for sex can move forward.
The former Fairfax County officers had asked a judge at a hearing Friday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria to have the case tossed out. In a ruling issued Wednesday, the judge tossed out some counts on technicalities but is allowing the case to go forward. The dismissed counts can be refiled to comply with technical failings.
A Costa Rican woman identified in the lawsuit only as “Jane Doe” says the officers would tip off her traffickers about upcoming sting operations so they could avoid detection.
Virginia Capitol Police are investigating after a bullet pierced a window at the office of the Attorney General in downtown Richmond. News outlets report that police said officers were called to the Barbara Johns Building on Monday evening and found a small round hole at the top of the window. The Attorney General’s office says housekeeping staff found the bullet in a sixth-floor office. The Attorney General’s office says there’s “no indication that this incident was targeted at the OAG specifically or any individual employee.” Capitol Police say there will be additional patrols in the area in coming days and an increased presence at the building for the foreseeable future.
Virginia’s attorney General is criticizing high school students who walked out of their classrooms to protest a leaked Supreme Court draft decision. WFIR’s Clark Palmer explains.
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) — William & Mary has dedicated a brick memorial that recognizes people who were enslaved by the university.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports the memorial is 20 feet high and 16 feet wide. It cost more than $2.9 million to build, including construction and material costs that were impacted by supply chain delays and construction inflation.
The university was chartered in 1693. It benefited from enslaved labor for 170 years.
It’s unclear how many people the university enslaved, but historians have discovered the names of more than 100 people owned by the college or its employees and students.
Enslaved people made the bricks that built the Wren Building, and they erected the building itself.
“Slaves were as inseparable a part of the college as the old bricks of the College Building itself,” Jennifer Oast wrote in a book about slavery in Virginia.
The design for the memorial, created by Richmond-based architectural firm Baskervill, was chosen in 2020. Richmond-based Kjellstrom & Lee built the memorial.
Its cost was covered by private funds and contributions from the board of visitors.
FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — There’s not much room for middle ground in the testimony thus far from Johnny Depp and Amber Heard in Depp’s libel suit against his ex-wife.
One of them is lying.
Heard has not yet finished telling the jury her side of things. Her testimony will continue May 16 once the trial — which has already stretched on for four weeks — resumes after a one-week break. Then she will face what one can safely assume will be an aggressive cross-examination in a case where both sides have employed scorched-earth tactics going back years to when the suit was first filed.
Depp is suing Heard in Virginia for libel over an op-ed she wrote in December 2018 in The Washington Post describing herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” The article doesn’t mention Depp by name, but his lawyers say the article defames him nevertheless because it’s a clear reference to the highly publicized allegations Heard made when she filed for divorce in 2016 and obtained a temporary restraining order against him.
Depp says he never physically abused Heard, while Heard says she was assaulted on more than a dozen occasions.
AMBER HEARD
He said, she said: Accounts from Depp and Heard rarely match
Heard takes stand, accuses Depp of violent sexual assault
Amber Heard testifies she was assaulted by Johnny Depp
Depp trial: Psychologist testifies actor assaulted Heard
Below are synopses of a few incidents and their divergent accounts.
THE FIRST TIME
Heard says the first time Depp ever struck her was in 2013, when she made the mistake of laughing at one of his tattoos. Heard said there was an older tattoo she couldn’t make out, and Depp told her it said “Wino.”
In fact, it used to say “Winona Forever,” a tattoo that Depp got when he was dating actor Winona Ryder. He had it altered to “Wino Forever” when they broke up.
Heard said she laughed, and Depp responded by slapping her. Thinking the slap must be a joke, she laughed. Depp responded by slapping her twice more, with the third slap knocking Heard off balance.
“It was so stupid, so insignificant,” Heard told the jury. “I thought it must be a joke.”
Depp, while he was on the stand, flatly denied it occurred.
“It didn’t happen,” he said. “Why would I take such great offense to someone making fun of a tattoo on my body? That allegation never made any sense to me.”
THE FINGER AND THE BOURBON BOTTLE
Both sides say the worst violence occurred in March 2015 in Australia, when Depp was shooting the fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie.
Heard said Depp sexually assaulted her with a liquor bottle — for the first time Thursday she identified a bottle of Maker’s Mark bourbon as the offending instrument after she said she saw a photo of the distinctively square bottle — as part of an alcohol-fueled rage. Heard came to Australia after shooting her own film and Depp immediately accused her of sleeping with her co-stars, she said.
Depp, for his part, says he was the victim of the violence. He testified that Heard was irate over efforts by Depp’s lawyers to have her sign a post-nuptial agreement, as well as the fact that Depp wasn’t adhering to pledges of sobriety to Heard’s satisfaction.
He said he escaped the argument by pouring himself a drink, at which point Heard threw a vodka bottle at him. Depp said he responded by pouring another drink, and this time Heard threw another vodka bottle at him that smashed against his hand while it rested on a counter and severed the tip of his middle finger.
Photos of the aftermath show Depp wrote vulgar messages to his wife in blood on the walls of the house. Jurors have also seen contemporaneous text messages Depp sent to others in which he said he cut off his own finger. Depp said he made up that story to protect Heard and avoid police involvement.
ALCOHOL AND DRUGS
While not a specific incident, Depp and Heard painted very different portraits of Depp’s drug and alcohol use.
Heard said drugs and alcohol — along with paranoid jealousy — is what turned him from the man she loved into the “monster” who made her fear for her life. She said he hid his drug and alcohol use from her and from his family but his behavior made it clear he was high or drunk, often to the point of incoherence.
”Johnny on speed is very different from Johnny on opiates. Johnny on opiates is very different from Adderall and cocaine Johnny, which is very different from Quaaludes Johnny, but I had to get good at paying attention to the different versions of him,” Heard said.
Indeed, Heard sys Depp’s denials of physical abuse lack credibility in part because he would black out and forget what he’d done.
Depp, for his part, admitted that he’d become addicted at one point to oxycodone and underwent a detox process in 2014. But he said the allegations of uncontrolled drug and alcohol use are grossly embellished.
“I’ve always had a pretty big tolerance for alcohol,” he testified. “I’ve never had a physical addiction to alcohol.”
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — A former commissioner of revenue for a Virginia county has pleaded guilty to attempted witness tampering, and his son pleaded guilty to a related charge of heroin distribution, prosecutors said.
Larry Vernon Snow, 73, pleaded guilty on Friday to a charge related to efforts to harass and dissuade a confidential informant from cooperating in a federal investigation of both himself and his son, and to prevent the confidential informant from aiding law enforcement in other investigations, said a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Bryant Austin Snow, 33, pleaded guilty to one related count of distributing heroin.
Court documents indicate Bryant Snow was arrested on two state drug charges in November 2017. Bryant Snow pleaded guilty in April 2018 to one count of distribution of methamphetamine in Greene County, Virginia.
While imprisoned, Bryant Snow received video and audio of the recorded narcotics buys by the confidential informant from him. He made multiple calls to his father, Larry Snow, to discuss one of the confidential informants.
After being notified in May 2019 that they were the targets of a federal investigation involving their conduct toward the informant, Larry Snow drafted approximately 12,000 leaflets to be mailed to residents of Greene County in an attempt to harass the informant from helping prosecutors, the news release said.
In connection with his guilty plea, Larry Snow resigned as commissioner of revenue in Greene County, a position he has held since 1987 and had been re-elected to while under federal indictment.
The Snows are scheduled for sentencing on July 25.