A 16-year-old Alexandria kid charged with allegedly shooting a man in September has been denied bond.
The suspect was charged in October with aggravated malicious wounding and two counts of robbery for the Sept. 22 incident in the 5500 block of Holmes Run Parkway. The shooting left a 21-year-old man paralyzed from a severed spinal cord after being shot in the neck, according to court records.
The deteriorating parking garage at the Albert V. Bryan United States Courthouse is about to get an $11.5 million upgrade.
The U.S. General Services Administration announced Monday that the courthouse parking garage, located at 401 Courthouse Square in the city’s Carlyle neighborhood, is one of 150 project around the country that will be repaired using “low-embodied carbon materials” via the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The courthouse repair will be made with carbon concrete.
A 32-year-old man from the Groveton area of Fairfax County, just south of Alexandria, pleaded guilty yesterday to defrauding the government of more than $1.4 million in fraudulent pandemic-related PPP loans and unemployment benefits.
George Mensah, Jr., 32, admitted in federal court to wire and mail fraud by collecting fees with two unnamed conspirators through CashApp, Zelle and bank transfers, according to court records. The scheme ran from Oct. 2020 to Sept. 2021, during which time Mensah admitted to preparing dozens of fake PPP loans and unemployment insurance claims under the CARES Act.
The former manager of Hank’s Oyster Bar faces years in prison after pleading guilty to embezzling $680,000 from the restaurant.
Claude Ibrahim, 53, pleaded guilty in the Alexandria Circuit Court to nine counts of felony embezzlement and eight counts of misdemeanor embezzlement.
Alexandria resident Junior Josue Espinal Calix, 20, pleaded guilty last week to involuntary manslaughter after accidentally shooting 21-year-old Nabel Christopher Chavez earlier this year.
Calix said he frequently played with the firearm and aimed it at Chavez, thinking it was unloaded, according to a release from Commonealth’s Attorney Bryan Porter.
(Updated at 8:30 p.m.) A 17-year-old former Alexandria City High School student was sentenced Thursday to five years with the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice for the 2022 murder of 18-year-old Luis Mejia Hernandez in the parking lot of the Bradlee Shopping Center, with one of those years already served.
Ryan Vega was 16 when he fatally stabbed Hernandez during a melee with dozens of ACHS students in the parking lot. In a two-day June bench trial, Judge James C. Clark found Vega guilty of second-degree murder and murder by mob, and said that Vega took advantage of his time behind bars at the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center by exhibiting good behavior and doing well with school.
A 46-year-old Alexandria man was charged with two counts of brandishing a firearm earlier this month after allegedly pointing a CO2-powered handheld pistol at a contractor working in his West End home.
On Sept. 5 (Tuesday), the contractor called police after the resident, Greco Gomez, allegedly brandished a firearm against him. The victim told police that he was working in the basement and took the trash outside and was “shocked” when Gomez allegedly threatened to shoot him, according to a recently released search warrant affidavit.
A 29-year-old Maryland man faces multiple charges after allegedly fleeing police in a stolen car in Alexandria’s West End.
The incident occurred at around 4:45 p.m. on Wednesday, August 30. Police found that a white Kia Forte with Virginia tags driving in the area of Duke Street and S. Reynolds Street was stolen, according to a recently released search warrant affidavit.
A 28-year-old Alexandria man was charged with peeping into a dwelling last month in the West End.
Police were alerted after midnight on Sunday, Aug. 27, that a man was allegedly peering through the windows of a lower-level apartment in the 700 block of N. Howard Street. A witness told police that the suspect would hide when anyone approached and then would return to the window, according to a recently released search warrant affidavit.
After weeks of waiting, Alexandria Circuit Court Judge Katie Uston denied a petition to promote Alexandria Police Department Captain Monica Lisle to the rank of assistant police chief.
Lisle, a 29-year APD veteran, is a white, gay woman who has fought for more than a year to become the assistant chief of police. She sued the city after City Manager Jim Parajon refused a three-member city grievance panel’s order to promote her to the position after finding that she’d been harmed and discriminated against in her pursuit of the job.
For the last year, Alexandria Police Department Capt. Monica Lisle has been embroiled in a promotion controversy.
Lisle, who is a white, gay woman, says that the hiring process for the open assistant police chief position was faulty from the start. After going through the city’s administrative procedures to contest her disqualification from promotion, a grievance panel determined that she’d been harmed in the hiring process and ordered her promotion.
