Crime

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Yonathan Melaku, 23, of Alexandria, Va., pled guilty today to damaging property and firearm violations involving five separate shootings at military installations in Northern Virginia between October and November 2010 and attempting to injure veterans’ memorials at Arlington National Cemetery.

Neil H. MacBride, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, made the announcement after the plea was accepted by United States District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee.

The suspect was arrested Tuesday. Prince William police said they stopped the suspect during a traffic stop near his home in the 13700 block of Palm Road in Dale City.

Police searched the suspect’s home, and at a home of a suspect’s acquaintance at 5016 Barnacle Place in Dumfries, and found evidence pertaining to a Jan. 13 shooting into a home in the 2500 block of Oak Tree Lane in Dumfries, Prince William police report.

North Stafford, Va. — Two deputies and a retired law enforcement officer at right place at the right time all chased down a Dumfries man.

Sheriff’s deputies were called to the scene of a crash at 11:35 p.m. Saturday, at the intersection of Va. 610 and the Stafford Marketplace shopping center in North Stafford after two cars, an Acura and Cadillac Escalade, collided on the six-lane road. Both cars were so damaged the road a portion of the road was shut down, said Stafford sheriff’s spokesman Bill Kennedy.

Neil H. MacBride, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Eric Hylton, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation’s Washington, D.C., Field Office, made the announcement after sentencing by United States District Judge T.S. Ellis, III. Fournier was pleaded on Oct. 21, 2011.

“Mr. Fournier was using the federal government as a line of credit, and today his bill came due,” said U.S. Attorney MacBride. “This case and the many others we have brought should serve as a warning to other small businesses that cheating the government is not a good business strategy.”

Stafford, Va. The Stafford County Sheriff’s Office is requesting the public’s assistance in helping to identify a subject involved in a suspicious activity in the Amy Clae subdivision in Stafford County.

On Friday, January 13, 2012 at approximately 8:00am, a 10 year old female was outside her residence on Nugent Drive in the Amy Clae subdivision when a male subject, sitting in an older, white van, called out to the juvenile stating “come over here, I won’t hurt you”. The 10 year old did not comply with the subject’s request and ran back into the house.

On Wednesday, police made an arrest in the case.

The victim was raped by an acquaintance in the suspect’s home in the 13200 block of Treetop Court in Woodbridge, near Hamill Mill Park.

In this scam the senior citizen receives a call where the caller identifies himself/herself as a grandchild in trouble with law enforcement in a foreign country and needs cash sent immediately to be used as bail money. Preying on the senior citizens uncertainty of which grandchild is calling, the caller is able to get the grandchild’s name and then pretend to be that person. Asking the grandparent to not call “Mom and Dad” because they want to tell them the bad news themselves, the caller then convinces the citizen to send the money by money order to an address they provide. This phone scam is being seen in other parts of the country as well.

In each incident in Stafford, the senior citizen receiving the bogus call has refused the request for money and contacted the Sheriff’s Office. This is not the first time that Stafford County citizens have reported this scam. It was first reported in Stafford County in July and September of 2009.

The 18-year-old male victim was in the 16900 block of Point Pleasant Lane off Allen Dent Road when we was approached by a man who hit him in the head with what, police said, appeared to be a handgun.

The victim fell to the ground and two other males surrounded him and took an undisclosed amount of cash and pizzas from the victim, said Prince William police.

Not an animal but rather a construction machine was reported stolen from the campus Strayer University on Minneiville Road in Woodbridge on Thursday. The $30,000 piece of equipment was later found parked on Yolanda Court in Manassas, said Prince William police.

Johnathan Larry Ellington, 39, of 14901 Yolanda Court in Manassas, is charged with possession of stolen property and with grand larceny, said police.