Mental Evaluation Sought in Va. Supermarket Kidnapping

Federal prosecutors are asking a judge to order a psychiatric examination for the woman accused of abducting a 5-year-old boy from a Northern Virginia supermarket, court records show.

The request for an examination of Falah O. Joe comes after her attorneys signaled that she intends to pursue a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity. Joe, 28, is charged with abducting Kamron Wells from the Shoppers Food Warehouse on Little River Turnpike in Fairfax County. He vanished from the store Oct. 19 while with his grandfather and sister and was discovered the next day with Joe at a rowhouse in the District, police said.

The government motion, filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, asks for "a pretrial psychiatric examination of the defendant to determine whether she was insane at the time of the offense." A judge has not yet ruled on the motion. Joe's attorneys on Friday had notified the court of her "intention to assert a defense of insanity at the time of the alleged offense."

Joe was ejected from a federal courtroom in the District in October after an outburst in which she declared: "I didn't kidnap nobody! That little boy was outside in the cold by himself."

Prosecutors revealed at that hearing that Joe was ordered to get mental health treatment after she was convicted in an earlier assault case and recently was jailed for 30 days for failing to cooperate with her probation officer.