Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 24, 1994 TAG: 9406290047
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As Anthony D. King was being led to jail in March, he turned and pointed to his ex-wife, seated in the courtroom, and told her: "I'm gonna get you," a witness testified Thursday.
Ruling that King's comment was a violation of his probation, Judge Kenneth Covington ordered that he serve 12 months of a six-year suspended sentence for robbery.
King, 28, was convicted of robbery last year after he ripped a wedding band from the finger of his former wife, Janice Curtis, during an argument outside her home. King also has been convicted of stalking and assaulting Curtis, and of making threatening telephone calls to her relatives.
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Dennis Nagel called Curtis "a continual victim of a man who is fixated on her."
Before the hearing in Roanoke Circuit Court was over, lawyers had referred to the murder charges against O.J. Simpson in Los Angeles and the subsequent media spotlight that case has focused on the issue of domestic violence.
Defense attorney Bruce Welch did not mention the Simpson case by name, but accused prosecutors of dropping "politically correct sound bites" in the wake of recent events.
Nagel responded that he had filed a motion to have King's probation revoked "long before O.J. Simpson was alleged to have murdered Nicole Simpson." Regardless of the national attention on the topic, he said, "it's one victim that we're seeking to protect today."
Covington agreed that "all of us at this time in history may have a heightened awareness of problems of this nature." The judge declined, however, to follow Nagel's recommendation that all six years of King's earlier suspended sentence be reinstated.
Since the March incident in the courtroom, King has been in jail serving a three-year sentence he received on an earlier probation violation - for making threatening telephone calls to Curtis' family members.
Sgt. John Dame of the Roanoke Sheriff's Office, who was working courtroom security at the time, testified that King pointed at Curtis and said he was going to "get" her as King was being led to jail after the hearing.
As he was being escorted back to jail after Thursday's hearing, King kept his back to Curtis, who again was sitting in the courtroom.
by CNB