Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 7, 1993 TAG: 9305070183
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Your honor,
On the docket this morning will be a minor matter with which you are no doubt familiar, the case of the Roanoke College Three.
Bryan Alcorn, R. Joseph LeGault Jr. and W. Cary Wright last stood before you on Dec. 15.
They were to be charged with the temporary theft of the gigantic wooden doors from the front of the Roanoke College administration.
It was a prank, admittedly sophomorish for a trio of college seniors. Worst of all, they chained the doors to the overlook at the Mill Mountain Star.
It certainly didn't improve any that Cary Wright was chronicling this outrageous crime for the campus newspaper, feigning ingnorance to the conspiracy.
The doors were missing for 15 days in November.
Your honor, you may remember that these guys didn't exactly turn themselves in. They took photographs of themselves with the hostage doors at Mill Mountain and turned the film in to be developed. A developer spotted the negative and ratted. Only then did the law get involved.
The lads were charged with grand larceny.
But you exercised delightful judicial temperament when you gave the college boys a stern and avuncular warning.
You told them you would reserve judgment on their crime if they would fulfill three requirements by graduation day:
Pay the college $150 for emotional pain and suffering.
Perform 50 hours of community service on campus.
Write a letter of apology to the college.
Bryan, Joe and Cary will stand before you this morning, your honor, heads bowed.
They seem to have owned up to their end of the deal.
They paid the money.
They worked in the campus greenhouse and they stuffed envelopes and they washed dishes and did all sorts of tedious jobs.
They wrote the letter.
Saturday, they expect to graduate from Roanoke College.
These three scrubbed, educated college chaps would like to end their college careers with a clean criminal record.
They were, at various times, at a senior picnic at the college just Thursday, your honor, somberly reflecting on the errors of their ways and worriedly turning aside offers of soda pop, hamburgers, chocolate cake and, yes, even beer.
In my humble opinion, and I admit I am barely worthy to approach your bench, they were the youthful models of good citizenship. Their behavior and restraint was exemplary.
And so, it is one citizen's request, your honor, that when Bryan, Joe and Cary come before you this morning, you will throw the book at them.
Rescind your deal, nail 'em all for grand larceny and send them to federal penitentiary for a quarter-century of hard labor.
This will teach them that the world they are about to enter as adults is not at all a fair place.
It will also make for great newspaper copy, a morsel for which I am always grateful.
Thanks, your honor,
Ed.
by CNB