Virginia General Assembly Convenes for Special Session — “The General Assembly returns on Monday to the Capitol it left 17 months ago as the coronavirus first gripped Virginia…Legislators meeting in a scheduled two-week special session have just two tasks on their to-do list, both highly consequential: allocating $4.3 billion in federal coronavirus relief funds and appointing a slew of judges to the state’s second-highest court.” [The Washington Post]
Fairfax County Man Arrested for Participating in Capitol Breach — “A Fairfax County, Virginia, man was arrested on six charges Thursday after a high school acquaintance tipped off the FBI about his alleged participation in the Capitol riot on January 6…[Luke Wessley] Bender faces six counts, including a felony count of obstruction of Congress that carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison.” [WUSA9]
Reston Community Center Candidate Filing Now Open — “Help your community by becoming a candidate for RCC’s Board of Governors. Candidate filing for the 2021 RCC Preference Poll is now open. Please download the candidate handbook and candidacy statement from our website and return by August 15.” [RCC/Facebook]
Reston Community Remembers Local Humanitarian — Described as a “pioneer, humanitarian, and entrepreneur,” longtime Reston resident Burton “Burt” Emmanuel Lamkin died on June 24 at the age of 86. Though he went to California a few years ago to be closer to family, he and his wife Kathryne were among the first African Americans to live in Reston when they moved there in 1966, and he was heavily involved in the Rotary Club of Herndon. [Connection Newspapers]
Photos: Reston Association Hosts Annual Tennis Tournament — “The 2021 Reston Simon Cup tennis tournament was held from mid through late July. Men’s and women’s singles and doubles matches were played at the Lake Newport tennis courts.” [RA/Facebook]
Funeral Services Held for Reston Couple Killed Before Christmas — Close to 800 people attended funeral services over the weekend for the Reston couple killed a few days before Christmas. A 17-year-old with suspected neo-Nazi sympathies has been charged in their murder. [WTOP]
Greater Reston Arts Center Selected for ’50 for 50 Arts Inspiration’Award — The Virginia Commission for the Arts, a state arts agency, selected GRACE to receive the award in the category of bedrock institutions. The “50 for 50 Arts Inspiration Awards” were conceived and designed by the commission as a 50th anniversary tribute to 50 examples of programs, individuals, and organizations critical to the arts in Virginia. [Viva Reston Lifestyle Magazine]
How to Dispose of Fire Place Ashes — After responding to several home fires involving ashes, the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department is reminding residents to properly dispose of fire place ashes.  [Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department]
FBI Raids Home in Sterling — FBI agents arrested Sean Andrew Duncan on Friday and charged him with attempting to obstruct a terrorism investigation. According to court documents, law enforcement allege Duncan has links to terrorism and sympathized with ISIS. [WUSA 9]
Flickr pool photo by Vantagehill
A Reston woman and an accomplice from Washington state were convicted Tuesday of terrorism crimes related to their material support of al-Shabaab, a foreign terrorist organization.
Muna Osman Jama, 36, of Reston and Hinda Osman Dhirane, 46, of Kent, Washington, were found guilty of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization after a bench trial in front of U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Trenga in Alexandria.
“Providing material support to foreign terrorist organizations is a very serious crime,” Dana J. Boente, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a statement. “These women funneled money to a terrorist organization which was conducting a violent insurgency campaign in Somalia. National security is the top priority in this office and we will continue to work closely with our law enforcement partners to investigate and prosecute those who provide material support to terrorists.” Read More
Federal authorities have arrested a Fairfax man who works as a Metro police officer on charges of attempting to aid ISIS.
Nicholas Young, 36, was arrested Tuesday on charges of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. His most recent alleged transgression was purchasing $245 in phone gift cards to help ISIS recruiters, FBI investigators said.
Young will have an initial appearance this afternoon in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Theresa C. Buchanan at U.S. District Court in Alexandria.
Metro Transit Police initiated the investigation and continues to work collaboratively with the FBI Washington Field Office Joint Terrorism Task Force on the case, authorities said in a news release.
Young has been terminated from Metro, a Metro spokesman said.
According to the affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, Young has been employed as a police officer with the Metro Transit Police Department since 2003. Law enforcement first interviewed Young in September 2010 in connection with his acquaintance, Zachary Chesser, who one month later pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists.
Over the next several years Young had numerous interactions with undercover law enforcement officers and a cooperating witness regarding Young’s knowledge or interest of terrorist related activity, many of which were recorded. Law enforcement also interviewed Young’s family and co-workers.
Several meetings Young had with an undercover law enforcement officer in 2011 included another of Young’s acquaintances, Amine El Khalifi, who later pleaded guilty to charges relating to attempting a suicide bombing at the U.S. Capitol Building in 2012, authorities said.
According to the affidavit, Young told FBI agents that he traveled to Libya twice in 2011 and he had been with rebels attempting to overthrow the Muammar Qaddafi regime. Baggage searches revealed that Young traveled with body armor, a kevlar helmet, and several other military-style items. Read More
A Las Vegas man who pleaded guilty to prostituting teenage girls in Reston, Herndon and other parts of Northern Virginia, has been sentenced to 40 years in prison, federal authorities said.
Authorities said Lenny Paul “2 Much” Haskins, 34, had been operating in Northern Virginia for nearly a decade. He pleaded guilty to sex trafficking in U.S. District Court in Alexandria in January.
The charge Haskins pleaded to took place in Herndon last summer. Authorities said in June 2014, Haskins encountered two teens at a hotel near Sacramento, Calif. The girls, ages 15 and 17, were runaways from foster care. Haskins provided marijuana and eventually recruited them to prostitute for him. Once he recruited them, Haskins performed sex acts with the victims, officials said.
In August 2014, Haskins instructed the victims to take a bus to Herndon for the purposes of being prostituted there. Haskins arranged for advertisements to be posted on the Internet site www.Backpage.com to obtain sex customers for the juveniles.
The juveniles sent prostitution proceeds to Haskins using various money transfer businesses. The Las Vegas Police Department arrested Haskins in August 2014 but he continued to call the victims and give them directions from jail, authorities said.
Authorities said Haskins frequently provided drugs to the women and girls whom he prostituted. He instructed the women and girls whom he prostituted to call him “Daddy.” Some of the women prostituted by Haskins were tattooed with Haskins’s moniker “2 Much,” according to the FBI.
The FBI said Haskins set a monetary quota that the victims whom he prostituted were required to meet each day. For example, in some places, Haskins required these women and girls to earn $1,000 per day from prostitution, and provide him with these proceeds. After Haskins was incarcerated, he continued to run his prostitution business from jail.
Haskins had faced a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. After his 40-year sentence, he will have a life term of supervised release. The court also ordered Haskins to pay $538,250 in restitution to the victims and to forfeit $738,250 to the United States.
Haskins was also arrested in Nevada in 2012 in connection with the drowning of a child. At the time he had fugitive warrants from California for assault and parole violation, Virginia for assault and prostitution charges, and Texas for larceny charges.
Earlier this week, Haskins’ girlfriend, who was located with her 3-year-old son, was arrested at the Crowne Plaza Herndon. Geidre Ruseckaite, 24, was charged by Fairfax County Police with child neglect, prostitution and keeping a bawdy place. Federal authorities also had been looking for Ruseckaite in connection with the prostitution of the 15-year-old in Herndon.
Photo: Lenny Haskins/Credit: Las Vegas PD
A Nevada man who authorities say has been prostituting teenagers in Reston and Herndon for nearly a decade, pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria Thursday to sex trafficking.
Authorities said Lenny Paul Haskins, aka “2 Much,” 34, of Las Vegas, Nev., and Richmond, Calif., pleaded guilty to sex trafficking of a child.
A statement of facts filed with the plea agreement said ” since at least 2005, Haskins has been a pimp and has derived his income primarily from prostituting women and girls.”
The plea agreement file said Haskins has prostituted women and girls in numerous cities and states, including New York, Nevada, Maryland, Louisiana, Tennessee, Colorado, Utah, California, and various places in Virginia (including Herndon, Reston, Vienna, Sterling, Falls Church, Tysons Corner, Dulles, Fairfax County, Arlington, and Alexandria).
The charge Haskins pleaded to took place in Herndon last summer. Authorities said in June 2014,  Haskins encountered two teens at a hotel near Sacramento, Calif..One was 15 years old and the other was 17 years old. Both were runaways from foster care. Haskins provided marijuana and eventually recruited them to prostitute for him. Once he recruited them, Haskins performed sex acts with the victims, officials said.
In August 2014, Haskins instructed the victims to take a bus to Herndon, for the purposes of being prostituted there. Haskins arranged for advertisements to be posted on the Internet site www.Backpage.com, to obtain sex customers for the juveniles.
The juveniles sent prostitution proceeds to Haskins using various money transfer businesses. The Las Vegas Police Department arrested Haskins in August 2014 but he continued to call the victims and give them directions from jail, authorities said.
Haskins faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
This case was investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office and the Fairfax County Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael J. Frank is prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has released photos of the suspect in the robbery at PNC bank inside the North Point Village Center Giant store earlier this week.
A man robbed the branch about 5 p.m. Monday. He told the teller he had a weapon and fled with an undisclosed amount of money, Fairfax County Police said.
The suspect is a black male, about 5-foot-7 and 170 lbs., said the FBI. He was wearing a red Nike hooded sweatshirt.
The description of the suspect is very similar to the suspect in the robbery of the Sun Trust branch inside the Safeway at Hunters Woods Village Center on Dec. 15.
There were also two other Reston bank robberies in recent weeks, Nov. 26 at Presidential Bank near the Home Depot and Dec. 10 at the Wells Fargo at Reston Town Center.
FBI is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information that leads to the identification, arrest and conviction of the suspect.
Anyone with information can call the FBI at 202-278-2000 or Fairfax County Crime Solvers by phone at 1-866-411-TIPS/8477.
A Reston man who federal officials said sold $250,000 worth of machinery parts from American manufacturers to Iranian companies pleaded guilty to felony charges in U.S. Federal Court in Alexandria on Thursday.
Vahid Hosseini, 62, ran a business called Sabern Industries from his home in Reston, FBI officials said.
Hosseini pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and a separate count of money laundering. Hosseini faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and fines totaling $250,000 when he is sentenced on June 6.
From the FBI:
In a statement of facts filed with the plea agreement, from at least as early as January 2008 to July 2013, Hosseini operated a business known as Sabern Instruments from his residence in Reston. Through this business, Hosseini procured more than $250,000 worth of goods from over 60 American manufacturers, which he then repackaged and shipped to entities in Iran.
The list of high-tech goods included tachometers, power supply instruments, high-temperature probes, ammonia test tubes, valves, and machinery parts, all of which are used in a variety of commercial applications, including power plants. Hosseini routed these shipments through the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in an attempt to disguise the fact that the items were destined for Iran. Such exports are prohibited without a license issued by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
In a related money laundering scheme, Hosseini had over $700,000 wired into his company business account from entities in Iran and the UAE, much of which was derived from his illegal export business. He then unlawfully withdrew money from his business account for personal expenditures.
A Reston man was sentenced on Friday to 16 years in prison for child pornography and failure to appear in court.
Alex Ernesto Calderon Velasquez, 27, pleaded guilty on July 25. Court documents said Calderon Velasquez used his computer to communicate with a 14-year-old girl in Texas. He then extorted the victim to strip and engage in sexual activity over Skype chats, which Calderon Velasquez recorded and kept on his computer along with other child pornography, U.S. Justice Department authorities said in a press release.
In 2011, Calderon Velasquez persuaded and enticed another 14-year-old girl in Arizona to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purposes of producing video recordings, which the defendant then stored on his laptop computer, authorities said.
Calderon Velasquez was scheduled to plead guilty to production of child pornography on May 24. Â On the morning of his guilty plea hearing, he fled. He was captured June 7 in Texas.
