VIRGINIA BRIEFING

Friday, August 31, 2007

ALEXANDRIA

Civil Lawsuits Seek Damages From Teen Who Slashed Officers

An Alexandria police officer and two former city officers who were slashed two years ago by a 17-year-old honor student sued him yesterday for damages.

The three victims filed civil suits in Alexandria Circuit Court seeking compensatory and punitive damages of $1.35 million each. Keegan Zacharie, who was near the top of his T.C. Williams High School class at the time of the September 2005 attack, is serving a five-year prison term for wounding Detective Venus Roman and Officers Mark Petersen and Sean Casey.

Roman and Petersen are no longer with the city force.

Also named as a defendant in the suits is Tiffany Gibbs, who was described as Zacharie's girlfriend and who was never charged with a crime. At Zacharie's trial, she testified that she knew he planned to rob a gun store. That plan played a role in Zacharie's actions the day of the attack, prosecutors said.

The three officers have recovered from their physical injuries but are still suffering the psychological effects of having a "young boy take a knife and open them up like a tin can," said Michael Kernback, the plaintiffs' attorney.

-- Daniela Deane

U.S. DISTRICT COURT

Bankruptcy Lawyer Sentenced For Conspiracy to Commit Fraud

A bankruptcy lawyer who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud was sentenced yesterday in federal court in Alexandria to a year and a day in federal prison.

U.S. District Court Judge Gerald Bruce Lee also ordered Leslie W. Lickstein, 54, of Fairfax to pay $1.1 million in restitution to Lehman Brothers Bank. Federal prosecutors said Lickstein served as a settlement attorney in the sale of a property in Great Falls in July 2002 and admitted that he filed a false statement with the bank, which then made a multimillion-dollar mortgage loan to a buyer who was not creditworthy. When the buyer defaulted, the bank sold the property at a loss of $1.1 million, prosecutors said.

Lickstein was the first president of the Northern Virginia Bankruptcy Bar Association. In 2004, his law license was suspended by the Virginia State Bar and by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Alexandria because he made false statements to the court, state bar records show.

-- Tom Jackman

U.S. EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

Five School Systems in State Receive Grants for Emergencies

U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced yesterday more than $24 million worth of grants to help 91 U.S. school systems, including five in Virginia, prepare for and respond to emergencies.

The Virginia recipients, according to an Education Department news release, were: Carroll County public schools ($110,062), Hanover County public schools ($242,051), Page County public schools ($82,839), Patrick County public schools ($99,000) and Newport News public schools ($243,394).

School systems in Maryland and the District were not listed among the grant recipients.