ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, May 16, 1996 TAG: 9605160173
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FAIRFAX
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
note: below
A JEWELER is incensed and an executive is charged with public expectoration.
After three years of saliva-slimed windows, a jewelry store owner is ready to chew lead and spit bullets.
Mergerdich "Mike" Tashjiansaid that after lodging scores of complaints with police, he hopes the suspect will get more than just a tongue-lashing from the judge on the charge of public spitting.
Tashjian claims a former customer has been directing fiery language and a watery tongue at his store and car because of a dispute over a watch-repair job three years ago.
Police charged Thomas M. Jenkins, 61, an executive aircraft broker who lives in the pricey Great Falls area of the suburban Washington county, with two counts of public expectoration and one count of defacing property.
``It's a charge that is rarely made,'' said police spokesman Warren Carmichael.
``Absurd is a good word for it,'' said Capt. Tom Bernal, whose three detectives arrested Jenkins at home. A trial is scheduled for Monday.
Enforcement of Virginia's 46-year-old public expectoration law is rare. Carmichael could find no record of such charges locally.
Jenkins, who denies the allegations, owns a one-man aircraft brokerage that handles $85 million to $100 million in sales annually, with a client list including such companies as Toyota Motor Corp., Shearson Lehman Brothers Inc. and Eastman Kodak.
Tashjian said he has been documenting and reporting once- or twice-a-week spitting incidents since mid-1993. But he had been unable to convince police that Jenkins was behind them, he said, mainly because the slimings tended to occur late at night when the shop was closed.
To obtain an arrest warrant, according to Tashjian and Bernal, the jeweler had to produce enough evidence to convince a magistrate that Jenkins did it. Tashjian even considered DNA analysis of the saliva, but decided against it.
Neither Tashjian nor police would say what the evidence is or whether it includes photographs or videotape. But Tashjian described the evidence as ``very convincing.''
Jenkins said the case is about harassment.
``It's malicious prosecution is what it amounts to,'' he said. ``The fact that this guy can take a disliking to you and then call his police friends to have them arrest you, I think that's the real issue.''
If convicted, he could receive $100 in fines on the two counts of expectorating in public. The defacing property charge carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.
LENGTH: Medium: 57 linesby CNB