Emily Babay

The Washington Examiner

By Emily Babay

The Washington Examiner

By Emily Babay

When Kevin Ricks admitted last week that he took sexually explicit photographs and videos of boys in his care for more than three decades, U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride called the former Manassas teacher a “dangerous and serial predator who assaulted scores of young men.” The Ricks case is just one of dozens of child pornography cases in local courts. The number of such cases in the D.C. region has risen dramatically in the past decade.

That’s the result of both the rapid proliferation of online child pornography and a more vigorous effort to apprehend those who produce, distribute and view it.

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The Washington Examiner

By Emily Babay

An Arlington man is accused of threatening to set off bombs around D.C., including in the Metro system, but was caught through messages he sent on Facebook before a plot was developed.

Awais Younis, who also goes by Sundullah “Sunny” Ghilzai as well as Mohhanme Khan, was charged in federal court in Alexandria with making threatening communications.

Younis, who was born in Afghanistan, used Facebook to threaten to set off explosives, according to an affidavit for his arrest by Joseph Lesinski, a special agent with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.

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The Washington Examiner

By Emily Babay

The man accused of killing federal intern Chandra Levy told a former cellmate that he was responsible for her death, but denied sexually assaulting her, the cellmate testified Thursday.

“I killed that bitch, but I didn’t rape her,” Ingmar Guandique allegedly told cellmate Armando Morales at a Kentucky prison in 2006.

Morales’ testimony about his conversations with Guandique while the two were cellmates at Big Sandy prison is the most incriminating evidence thus far in Guandique’s murder trial in D.C. Superior Court.
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Live tweets — over several days — with updates from the courtroom during jury selection in the trial of Ingmar Guandique, accused of killing D.C. intern Chandra Levy.

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The Washington Examiner

By Emily Babay

It’s a classic David and Goliath story: A white-shoe law firm staffed with hundreds of D.C.’s most-powerful lawyers has moved to shutter a hamburger eatery on the grounds that the lawyers didn’t like the aroma of cooking meat wafting into their offices.

So far, Goliath is winning.

D.C. Superior Court Judge John Mott ordered the restaurant, Rogue States on Connecticut Avenue near Dupont Circle, to shut down its grill this week. Neighboring law firm Steptoe & Johnson had sued the restaurant, saying the firm’s employees suffered nausea, watery eyes and headaches from Rogue States’ fumes.
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The Washington Examiner

By Emily Babay

One year ago, Douglass Berg, of Reston, said goodbye to his son and daughter before they boarded a flight with his ex-wife on what was supposed to be a three-week visit to her native Japan. He has not seen the children since.

Stefanie Gardner, a native of Germany, traveled to that country with the two young sons she had been raising in Northern Virginia with her estranged husband, Gregory. Since then, she has refused to allow them to return. He accused her of kidnapping the boys, and a warrant for her arrest was issued in the United States. But a German court has awarded her sole custody.

For an increasing number of parents in the Washington area, child-bearing relationships with a foreign partner are deteriorating into charges of child abductions, and in many cases legal struggles in which the deck is stacked against Americans fighting the laws of another country.

Nationwide, the number of cases is rising dramatically. There were 1,135 international child abductions in fiscal 2009, according to State Department statistics. That’s nearly double the 642 cases reported in 2006.
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The Washington Examiner

By Emily Babay

It is “very probable” that the three men accused of covering up Robert Wone’s death conspired to mislead police, a D.C. judge ruled, but prosecutors still did not present enough evidence to warrant a conviction.

Superior Court Judge Lynn Leibovitz found Joseph Price, Dylan Ward and Victor Zaborsky not guilty of conspiracy and obstruction of justice Tuesday.

Price was also acquitted of tampering with evidence in connection with Wone’s Aug. 2, 2006, stabbing death in the trio’s Dupont Circle town house. Ward and Zaborsky had previously been acquitted of that charge.
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Erie Times-News

By Emily Babay

For couples like Kirsten Rispin and her girlfriend, the path to marriage is filled with legal and logistical obstacles.

The Erie women might take advantage of the California Supreme Court ruling in May that made same-sex marriage legal.

Some couples in the Erie region are contemplating cross-country trips. Others question the value of doing so.

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The Daily Pennsylvanian

By Emily Babay

Last December, Economics professor Rafael Robb “lost it” during a fight with his wife, Ellen, about whether their daughter would return from an upcoming vacation in time to attend school.

That day, Dec. 22, 2006, Ellen Robb was found bludgeoned to death in the couple’s Upper Merion home – a crime for which Rafael Robb admitted guilt yesterday.

Robb, 57, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, saying he used a chin-up bar to beat to death his wife of 16 years. Robb’s trial on first- and third-degree murder charges was scheduled to begin yesterday.

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