State forced to drop charges
Most charges against three burglary suspects thrown out in Fairfax
By Tom Jackman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 25, 2010
A Fairfax County woman said she heard a loud noise in her house one morning in June, stepped outside her bathroom and came face-to-face with an unknown man walking up her stairs. "Hello," she said to him. He turned and ran. Five months later, the man, his wife and another man, all from New York City, were arrested and charged with burglarizing Fairfax and Loudoun homes owned by South Asians, specifically snatching pure gold pieces and ignoring other valuables. But the cases against two of the three defendants have been dismissed in Fairfax, and only the attempted burglary charge heard in Fairfax County General District Court on Wednesday remained.
The case against Dagoberto Soto-Ramirez was sent to a Circuit Court grand jury by General District Court Judge Ian M. O'Flaherty. But all remaining charges in Fairfax against Soto-Ramirez's wife, Melinda Soto, and co-defendant Francisco Gray were dismissed after Fairfax Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Katherine E. Stott dropped the attempted burglary case against them Wednesday. Last month, O'Flaherty threw out 10 counts apiece that had been filed against the three, after finding that police had not conclusively linked them to incriminating evidence found in their rental car and hotel room. Earlier this month, a Loudoun judge threw out an additional six counts against Gray. He faces no criminal charges, but he is being held on an immigration detainer, Stott said. Soto-Ramirez and Soto have a preliminary hearing set in Loudoun for next week on the same counts.
"We're very frustrated," said Raman Kumar, one of about two dozen homeowners in Fairfax and Loudoun whose homes were robbed last summer and fall. The burglars apparently knew that Indian and South Asian families keep 22-karat gold items in their homes and pass them from generation to generation. No more, Kumar said. "Most South Asians are not keeping gold in their houses anymore," said Kumar, who has organized a group of South Asian families to communicate about crime and the pending cases. He said residents have begun joining neighborhood watch groups and are more willing to keep their valuables in banks. In a 4 1/2 -hour hearing last month, Fairfax police officers testified that they found a police scanner, a cellphone with a 718 area code, some large screwdrivers and binoculars -- but no stolen gold -- in a rented Ford Escape when the three New Yorkers were arrested driving around the Clifton area in November.
O'Flaherty did not find that any of that constituted evidence of a burglary. Fairfax Detective Tim Cook testified that in the defendants' Alexandria hotel room, there were lists of Fairfax County addresses with phone numbers and the word "Indio" written after some of them, Spanish for "Indian." Also found were lists of Fairfax police frequencies and Fairfax police districts. But police hadn't located the room for more than a week after the arrests, by which time maids had cleaned it out and placed the evidence in a lost-and-found room. The chain of custody was broken, O'Flaherty ruled, and he threw out all the evidence and all but one charge, which was heard Wednesday. On June 25, Diana Abbassi testified, she saw the unknown man in her house. He didn't take anything. After Soto-Ramirez was arrested in November, Abbassi said she picked him out of a photo lineup. Stott said she couldn't say whether prosecutors would seek to indict the three when the grand jury meets next month; an indictment is allowed under Virginia law even if the cases are dismissed at preliminary hearing. Four other New Yorkers face pending conspiracy charges in Fairfax for their alleged involvement in the ring, officials said.
No comments:
Post a Comment