Friday, June 1, 2007

FAIRFAX CRIME

A Fairfax County man who was featured in a "Dateline NBC" television report on sexual predators after he walked naked into a house in Herndon in 2005, expecting to meet a 14-year-old boy, has been arrested again for allegedly exposing himself to two teenage girls in a Centreville park.

In 2005, John M. Kennelly, 45, of the Falls Church area was one of many men who engaged in online chats with men posing as teenagers seeking sex. He and others were directed to the Herndon house in August 2005, where an NBC camera crew awaited. Kennelly followed instructions to enter naked and ran off when confronted. But he went back online the next morning, again with a man posing as a teen, and again went to a supposed rendezvous, only to be confronted by cameras, according to court documents.

Kennelly pleaded guilty last June to one count of using a computer to solicit a minor and was given a two-year suspended sentence and placed on three years' probation by Fairfax Circuit Court Judge M. Langhorne Keith. Among the many conditions Keith imposed was that Kennelly not have unsupervised contact with juveniles.

Fairfax police allege that he exposed himself in Cub Run Valley Park on March 10, and on Wednesday they charged him with two counts of indecent exposure. Because the incident was also an alleged probation violation, he was being held without bond yesterday in the county jail.

-- Tom Jackman

Former vice mayor William C. "Bill" Cleveland has won the Republican nomination to fill the Alexandria council seat left vacant when Andrew H. Macdonald resigned as vice mayor last month.

Cleveland, a retired Capitol Hill police officer, was the top vote-getter among three candidates under consideration by the Alexandria Republican City Committee, defeating Pat Troy and Lisa Miller.

Cleveland will be one of a half-dozen candidates who will run in a special election July 17 to fill Macdonald's seat. The others are former prosecutor James K. Lay; civic activist Justin Wilson; Boyd Walker, Macdonald's former campaign manager; lawyer Mark Feldheim; and Lenny Harris, chairman of the DASH transit board.

Macdonald said he stepped down for personal reasons. He has been replaced as vice mayor by longtime council member Redella S. "Del" Pepper. The vice mayor post is typically awarded to the top vote-getter among council candidates in the regular elections, held every three years.

-- Kirstin Downey