In a meeting on October 8, 2024, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors approved funding for new positions in the Commonwealth Attorney's Office, addressing the office's need for additional resources to handle an increasing caseload. The positions include four new attorney roles: paralegal, victim-witness staff, and administrative staff. Commonwealth Attorney Amy Ashworth emphasized the importance of these positions for the efficiency and effectiveness of the county’s criminal justice system.
The new hires come after Ashworth said she would withhold prosecution of certain misdemeanor charges, effective May 1, 2024, if county leaders don’t give her more employees.
This article is FREE to read. Please Sign In or Create a FREE Account. Thank you.
The Prince William Board of County Supervisors met on Tuesday, October 8, 2024, to discuss a proposal to address the risks associated with street panhandling by offering employment opportunities to those begging on busy streets. The plan, spearheaded by the county's health, wellbeing, and environmental sustainability team, sought to provide panhandlers with jobs paying $13 an hour for two days a week, hoping this alternative would reduce their presence on streets and mitigate safety concerns.
Inspired by similar initiatives in cities like Albuquerque, New Mexico, the program aimed to address panhandling through a multi-faceted approach. This included coordinated community outreach, focused pedestrian violation enforcement, and public engagement efforts encouraging residents to give to local nonprofits instead of handing money directly to panhandlers. The idea was to transition panhandlers into employment while also addressing issues such as addiction and underemployment, which often drive individuals to beg for money.
This article requires a paid Locals Only Membership to read. Please Sign In or Upgrade to a paid membership. Thank you.
A proposal to introduce artificial intelligence (AI) tracking for traffic and pedestrian safety in Prince William County was deferred after a contentious discussion during the Sept. 19, 2024, Board of County Supervisors meeting. If approved, this initiative would mark the first time the county government has used AI technology to track and analyze citizens’ movements.
The initiative aims to enhance traffic safety by deploying AI-enabled camera technology to monitor traffic patterns and analyze near-miss incidents at 26 high-risk locations throughout the county, including non-vehicular near misses. This gives the impression that the AI will use equipment that can differentiate different people. The proposed locations are scattered throughout the county and primarily encompass the Routes 1 and 234 corridors in Woodbridge and the Manassas areas, respectively.
This article requires a paid Locals Only Membership to read. Please Sign In or Upgrade to a paid membership. Thank you.
Supervisor Yesli Vega has put forth a proposal to explore providing a tax break for terminally ill residents in the county, aiming to ease the financial burden on families dealing with the high costs of medical care.
At the recent Prince William Board of County Supervisors meeting, Vega directed county staff to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the potential implementation of the tax break. Vega emphasized the importance of providing relief to residents who are struggling with the financial challenges that come with terminal illness.
This article is FREE to read. Please Sign In or Create a FREE Account. Thank you.
In Prince William County, a catch-and-release style revolving justice system keeps more criminals on the street in the name of fairness.
A shooting at Manassas Mall on July 9, 2024, left two people injured, including one of five suspects in the case, underscores a more significant problem with the justice system in a much more progressive Prince William County.
At odds are those who want to reform the judicial process to make it more fair for criminals and those who wish to prosecute crime to get them off the streets for a determinate period. Caught in the middle are county residents.
Revolving Justice System and Its Implications
In a July 10 letter to her constituents, Coles District Supervisor Yesli Vega, whose district borders the Manassas mall, highlighted two cases where individuals previously accused of felony offenses were released from custody and re-offended. In the mall shooting, she highlighted that 18-year-old Daevon Russell, one of the individuals involved in the gun battle that left a shooter and a bystander wounded, had been previously arrested after an August 2023 shooting for reckless handling of a gun causing permanent bodily severe injury, a felony.
Court records show Russell went to a classmate’s house and shot the cousin of the classmate, who was also inside the home, without provocation. Russell ran from the home, leaving the victim there to bleed. The victim went into cardiac arrest several times on the life flight to Inova Fairfax Hospital, where doctors were able to stop the bleeding and save his life.
Controversial Decisions and Judicial Diversion
When the case went to court, Judge Petula C. Metzer, on a recommendation from county Commonwealth Attorney Amy Ashworth, released Russell with nothing more than a promise to appear and the stipulations that he “not consume intoxicants and have no contact with the victim.” Ashworth claimed her office argued for no bond at a previous hearing, but she could not produce the bond document to prove her claim.
There was no stipulation in Metzler’s order to not possess or carry a firearm. Russell is now accused of going to the mall armed and getting into an altercation in the food court that escalated to shots fired between the two groups.
In a separate case in her letter, Vega highlighted Arial Moya Claros, who has 11 previous charges involving alcohol and family violence over the last two years, before his arrest on July 7, 2024, for felony abduction by force and misdemeanor domestic violence assault and a second driving while intoxicated (DWI) charge.
Six months earlier, in a January 2024 case, Claros’ landlord sought a restraining order against him after the landlord claimed Claros “took the eviction process personal” and claimed Moya Claros was caught on camera attempting to damage the landlord’s vehicles. A verbal confrontation ensued, and the police responded. The landlord also claimed in his petition for a restraining order that Claros followed his pre-teen daughter home, and she had to hide and call her parents because she was scared.
Claros’ case was adjudicated in a family court diversion program in the two earlier domestic violence instances. Had he been convicted in either of the other domestic violence cases, he would be facing a Class Six felony charge for the Domestic Violence assault, which carries a penalty of up to 20 years in jail.
Now, he faces only a misdemeanor assault charge because there were no convictions in the earlier cases, for which carries a much lighter potential sentence. Despite his history of violence and the escalation of violence with this same victim, Claros was released within hours of his arrest on a simple promise to appear.
Commonwealth Attorney Amy Ashworth points to Virginia law that judges only consider convictions, not pre-trial adjudications, when making bail decisions. This requirement by the code to only consider convictions and Ashworth’s focus on diversionary programs sidesteps the more intense consequences convictions provide for re-offenders.
Citing a long-standing prohibition on making statements about open cases, Ashworth said that her office “takes domestic violence cases very seriously and would never agree to a bond if [her office] believed the accused was a danger to anyone or there was a risk the accused [would abscond].” She also said that her office makes good faith recommendations to the judges regarding bail and diversion, but “the Judges unfortunately do not issue reasons for the decisions that they make.”
Diversion Programs vs. Public Safety
Diversion is a broad term referring to alternatives to prosecution that minimize an offender’s exposure to the criminal system by offering an alternative to prosecution and incarceration. These programs bank on an offender’s desire to stay out of jail, to get them on a path to not re-offend.
Diversion programs can help first-time offenders, but experts warn that overusing them for repeat offenders could weaken domestic violence prosecutions. This overuse might unintentionally support the ongoing cycle of violence that victims experience.
Elisa Castillo, director of domestic violence services at Action in Community Through Service (ACTS) in Prince William County, said, “Diversion programs have their place, but some people, for whatever reason, don’t take the chances they are given seriously and jail has to be part of the equation.”
With Ashworth’s election in 2019, county prosecutors shifted focus from a reputation of being tough on crime to a more diversionary justice system that incarcerates fewer criminals and focuses prosecutorial efforts on programs to rehabilitate criminals before they go to jail. The result is a record-low incarceration population in the county lockup and a heavier workload on the probation office.
Prince William County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Terry Fearnley said the jail population hovers around 540 and represents only the worst of the worst offenders. That number is about half of the jail’s average under former county prosecutor Paul Ebert, who retired after 50 years. Under Ebert, the jail averaged 1,000 inmates.
The jail population is not a bellwether of a healthy justice system but can indicate problems. According to Steve Austin, the county’s director of criminal justice services, referrals from the courts to his pretrial release program have risen nearly 19% during Ashworth’s tenure. Yet, recidivism rates, or the number of accused who commit additional crimes, in his programs have increased by two percentage points in the same period.
Ashworth has said that she does not maintain recidivism statistics, so we are unable to compare how many times people not involved in pre-trial supervision re-offend on her watch. In a statement to Potomac Local, Austin said he could not pinpoint why the recidivism rate in his program has increased despite increased staffing and budgeting.
Community Impact and Political Reactions
Supervisor Vega, reserve Prince William sheriff’s deputy, has been critical of Ashworth’s soft-on-crime policies for some time. She highlighted the two cases because they are “but two examples of the catch and release justice system she sees under Ashworth’s watch.” Vega said she has a unique vantage point of the justice system, previously as a patrol cop and now in her reserve capacity working in the courthouse. “I hear complaints from law enforcement officers telling me that they are dismayed how quickly people they arrest for serious crimes are back on the streets within hours of their arrest and back re-offending, and I hear from constituents that are worried about how unsafe our community has become.
Ashworth is a founding member of the Virginia Progressive Prosecutors for Justice (VPPJ), a left-leaning political activist group. VPPJ has been a leading proponent of justice reforms in Virginia that make crime less detrimental for criminals in the name of equal justice.
VPPJ has called for the state legislature to end mandatory minimum sentences and cash bail. A 2021 letter to the General Assembly argued that these reforms would make it more fair for poorer Virginians. Ashworth does not think making the accused put up collateral to leave jail will help criminals return to court, “Requiring a cash bond punishes people for being poor, and it makes bail bond companies rich,” she said.
With the largest prosecutorial team in the commonwealth, Ashworth has made headlines for prosecuting significantly fewer cases and instead focusing on diversionary efforts as an alternative to prosecution. On average, Ashworth’s predecessor, Paul Ebert, prosecuted 350 felony cases monthly. Ashworth comparatively averages to indict 75 125 felonies per month despite a massive influx in funding and personnel.
Her opponents have blamed the lack of prosecutions as the reason for the county’s alarming 70 percent increase in violent crime between 2019 and 2023. In an unsuccessful bid to unseat Ashworth in 2023, Matt Lowery held a press conference highlighting the rise in violent crime last year. “Ms. Ashworth has charted a course virtually identical to the ultra-liberal prosecutors all around us, and Prince William County residents have paid the price with their property, with their health, and even sometimes with their lives,” Lowery said.
In a 2019 interview with Potomac Local News, Ashworth stated that the fair handling of domestic violence cases was one of her top three issues when running for office. “I will assign a senior attorney to exclusively handle domestic violence so we can pay more attention to the serious domestic violence cases and sort out the minor ‘push-and-shove’ cases,” Ashworth said.
According to The National Domestic Violence Hotline, domestic abuse almost always escalates to something bigger without intervention. This escalation appears to be present in the Moya Claros case, where he is now accused of abducting his victim by force- a felony- in his current case.
Russell’s trial on the December charges is set for August 5, 2024. He remains at the Prince William Adult Detention Center with no bond after his arrest for the Manassas Mall incident. He’s scheduled for a preliminary hearing on the mall charges on September 19, 2024.
Moya Claros’ case is set for another adjudication hearing on November 19, 2024. He remains free on a promise to appear.
*This story has been corrected.
Editor's note: This is the second of a two-part story focused on Prince William Board of County Supervisor At-large Deshundra Jefferson's first 100 days in office. Read part one here.
In the wake of the contentious PW Digital Gateway project and ongoing debates surrounding the Meals Tax, Chair At-large Deshundra Jefferson of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors faces a series of complex decisions as county leaders leave their honeymoon phase and begin on the next three and a half years of their term.
This article requires a paid Locals Only Membership to read. Please Sign In or Upgrade to a paid membership. Thank you.
At 47, Jefferson, a single mother who lives in Montclair, shares how she balances raising a teenage son with managing a county of nearly a half million residents. She provided insights into her governance approach and her vision for the future of the county.
Under her leadership, the Board of Supervisors recently halted three years of consecutive property tax hikes, which are a primary source of funding for county government and public schools. The approved $2.2 billion budget focuses on critical needs like schools and infrastructure while offering tax relief to residents.
This article requires a paid Locals Only Membership to read. Please Sign In or Upgrade to a paid membership. Thank you.
Prince William County’s Board of Supervisors easily approved the fiscal year 2025 budget with a few changes on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, to take effect on July 1.
Following the April 16 budget markup meeting, the supervisors unanimously approved almost everything on the docket. Notably, the board set the real estate tax rate at 92 cents per $100 assessed value. Multiple supervisors stated that this decision was made to balance the tax burden on residents with data centers.
This article requires a paid Locals Only Membership to read. Please Sign In or Upgrade to a paid membership. Thank you.
In a letter addressed to the Chair and the Supervisors of Prince William County, Commonwealth’s Attorney Amy Ashworth outlined her intention to withhold prosecution of certain misdemeanor charges, effective May 1, 2024, if county leaders don’t give her more employees.
According to the letter, the Prince William County Prosecutor’s Office is operating with 26 fewer positions than required. A recent time study showed the office has a deficit of seven attorneys and 19 administrative staff, Ashworth wrote.
On April 18, 2024, supervisors voted in a straw poll and decided to fund an additional four attorneys and four administrative staff for Ashworth’s office. Ashworth asked for 16 new people and asserted that the office cannot sustain its current level of service and must take steps to reduce the caseload. As it stands, Ashworth is set to receive $13 million from the county government to operate her office for the coming fiscal year, starting July 1, 2024. The figure does not include funding from Manassas and Manassas Park cities, for which Ashworth also prosecutes criminal cases.
In response to the straw poll, Ashworth wrote supervisors and listed a series of Class 1 and 2 misdemeanors to which she may no longer assign a prosecutor, including petit larceny, shoplifting, narcotic charges, underage alcohol offenses, disorderly conduct, obstruction of justice, escapes, obscenity, false identification and false report to police, destruction of property, trespassing, reckless driving (unless fatal), and all traffic and operator license misdemeanors.
The Prince William Board of County Supervisors is set to approve its entire FY 2025 budget tomorrow.
“The bottom line is that this office was not properly staffed and funded for decades as the County grew up around us,” Ashworth wrote in an email to Potomac Local. “The time study was able to finally give us a clear staffing standard across the state for all prosecutor’s offices.”
Ashworth, a Democrat, was re-elected to office in November 2023 and is in the first year of her second four-year term.
“The Commonwealth of Virginia does not fund prosecution of misdemeanor cases – only felonies. In smaller jurisdictions, it is easier for the prosecutor to just handle all the misdemeanors as well. However, other large jurisdictions do not handle all of the misdemeanors as [Prince William County] does,” Ashworth adds.
Acknowledging the impact of this decision, Ashworth emphasized the need to focus limited resources on misdemeanors deemed most critical, such as DUI, weapon offenses, and violent crime.
Ashworth’s threats to cut prosecutorial services garnered a quick response from supervisors.
“She claims her predecessor understaffed his office. I don’t recall anyone claiming Paul Ebert [Ashworth’s predecessor] didn’t prosecute enough. The question is efficiency. If Fairfax can do more with less, why can’t she?” asked Gainesville District Supervisor Bob Wier.
During a presentation earlier this month, Ashworth told the Board of County Supervisors that of her 54 office employees, 29 were prosecutors when she took over from her predecessor Paul Ebert, Virginia’s longest-serving prosecutor from 1968 until his retirement in 2019. Since that time dozens of full-time positions have been added to the Commonwealth Attorney’s office, resulting in nearly 80 employees.
“By supporting eight new positions in FY25, in addition to fulfilling the three-year staffing plan introduced by Ms. Ashworth in 2021, I am confident that this Board has provided the Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney with the necessary resources to fulfill its prosecutorial duties to our residents,” said Occoquan District Supervisor Kenny Boddye. “These new positions will make our Commonwealth’s Attorney office the largest in Virginia, eclipsing even the staffing levels of Fairfax County, which serves more than two times as many residents.”
Since she took over, the Board of County Supervisors has increased funding for her office by $6.4 million and added 32 employees. This represents a cumulative percentage increase of about 93.5% over five years. All the while, Ashworth is pursuing fewer cases than her predecessor, choosing to indict 75 felonies on average per month compared to the 350-per-month average Ebert pursued.
Despite Ashworth having successfully lobbied to increase her office budget to the largest it has ever been in county history, she has the fewest average prosecutions of her predecessors. Meanwhile, the county’s murder rate has doubled, and violent crime increased by 70% since 2019.
In a letter to constituents, Coles District Supervisor Yesli Vega called Ashworth’s letter a “dangerous temper tantrum” describing it as “a stain on the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office and unbecoming of an elected official.” She also questioned how a 2% increase in caseload could represent a $2 million budget request.
Both Weir and Vega pointed to neighboring Fairfax County, which cut misdemeanor prosecutions and has subsequently seen a rise in overall crime, with Vega rhetorically asking, “How has that worked out for them?”
In addition to the potential for increased crime in Prince William, the change would also increase the workload of Prince William County Police officers. In her letter, Ashworth clarified that while her office will no longer prosecute these offenses, the burden of prosecution will shift to the arresting police officer, who must handle traditional prosecutor duties such as subpoenaing witnesses, answering discovery, and presenting evidence in court.
“There will be an additional burden on the department in that we will need to train officers on how to do the legal courtroom work traditionally done by the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office,” said Prince William County Police Chief Peter Newsham. “This will also likely result in officers spending more time in court and less time in the community.”
Newsham added that there likely would be a “negative impact on conviction rates during the learning curve.” adding, “Our officers are committed, dedicated, and professional, but they are not lawyers.”
“I don’t think this board responds well to threats and Prince William County does not have an unlimited source of revenue,” Weir added when asked if Ashworth’s threats would lead to him consider changing his vote. “We’re growing the government at a level that is unsustainable given the revenues.”
The Board of County Supervisors meets at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at the McCoart County Government Building, 1 County Complex Court in Woodbridge. The meeting is open to the public and will be streamed online.
Alan Gloss is a freelance reporter for Potomac Local News.
A note to you, our readers:
This story is free to read, but it costs money to bring it to you. If you rely on us for local news and haven’t already, please support us by becoming a member!
-
- Join our Locals Only Membership Today!
