Police body camera footage shows a Deputy Fairfax County prosecutor refusing to leave a Manassas bar after closing.
The footage, obtained by PLN by a Freedom of Information Act records order, shows a woman identified by people in the video as Ashleigh Sutton, standing outside of the Old Towne Sports Pub after 2 a.m. Saturday, June 10.
Sutton refused orders to leave from the bar manager and later police officers, who asked Sutton to get into the passenger seat of a car and leave. A second woman, who identified as an assistant Fairfax County prosecutor, and the drunken woman as her superior, was also trying to coax the woman into the car so that she could drive her home.
When the bar closed, a security guard called 911 at 2 a.m. to ask the police for help removing the woman.
“She’s actually a commonwealth’s attorney…so we’re treading lightly on how we’re going to handle this,” a security guard told the 911 operator.
When police arrived, body cam videos showed the woman police identified as Sutton, and two female coworkers, one of which was trying to coax Sutton into the car. Several Manassas police officers recognized Sutton.
“How’s it going, Ashleigh? [Is] Fairfax treating you OK,” one officer asks the woman. “I’m looking out for you. Please get in the car. I don’t want to have to take you to jail.”
The woman admitted to being “super drunk,” and continually asked police what crime she committed by refusing to get into the car and leave. “What is the criminal offense of me standing here super drunk?” the woman asks the police officer in the body cam video.
Police told her she violated Virginia’s public drunkenness laws and said the bar’s manager asked her to leave. “This business doesn’t want want to be here anymore, and you’re intoxicated in public,” an officer says.
“OK, fine. It’s a misdemeanor,” the woman replies. The woman continued to engage officers, asking them, “What’s the next step?”
Meanwhile, her co-workers tried to help the woman after the police arrived. “I know you’re my supervisor, but I can’t sit here and watch you do this to yourself,” said the woman trying to coax Sutton into the car.
Video captured a third woman, another friend to Sutton, telling officers the three women came to the bar after attending a concert at Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow. “This is the first time I’ve ever been out with her. We have to take her back to Fairfax,” cameras recorded the woman saying.
Ultimately, the woman, identified as Sutton, got into the passenger seat and presumably left the area about 20 minutes after the police were called. Manassas police tell PLN no charges were filed.
A spokeswoman for the Office of Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano declined to comment on the matter. Sutton has worked in the Fairfax County Commonwealths Attorney’s Office since January 2020, the same month Descano was sworn in.
