ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 22, 1996 TAG: 9605220070
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
Alford plea entered in beating
FAIRFAX - A woman prosecutors said was hired to beat the pregnant girlfriend of a married man could be sentenced to life plus 20 years in prison.
Dawn M. Smeriglio, 21, entered an Alford plea Tuesday, which means she acknowledged that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict her of malicious wounding and robbery. Sentencing was set for June 28 in Fairfax Circuit Court.
Smeriglio and two juvenile girls are accused of beating and kicking Lakesha Braxton in the stomach last October in an unsuccessful attempt to induce a miscarriage.
Anthony Watts, 25, who believed he was the baby's father, was convicted in March of hiring the three to attack Braxton. Fairfax Circuit Judge David Stitt on Friday sentenced Watts to six months in jail, suspended, placed him on probation for two years and fined him $2,000.
- Associated Press
ATM theft attempt definitely not subtle
GAINESVILLE - Thieves hijacked a front-end loader from a construction site and used it to try to steal a bank's automatic teller machine, bank officials say.
Construction crews worked Monday to clear the wreckage of the ATM at Fairfax Bank and Trust.
``They must not have been very good operators, since the roof was all torn up and the machine destroyed,'' said T. Earl Rogers, executive vice president of the bank.
``They were not able to get into it,'' Rogers said. ``No money was lost, but I give them an `A' for effort.''
- Associated Press
Grade-fixing puts college on alert
ANNANDALE - An employee at Northern Virginia Community College has been fired after admitting to changing four grades for a student friend on the school's computer system, a college spokeswoman said.
The incident has prompted new computer security measures at the college's five campuses.
Viwat Jolly Lim, 52, of Fairfax, was charged by campus police with two counts of computer trespass. Lim, who worked in the admissions and records office at the Annandale campus, allegedly changed the student's grades twice in January. He was fired May 8, a school spokeswoman said.
Officials at the 61,000-student community college said they believe it was an isolated case but have taken several steps to tighten security. They are checking every grade change entered into the computer system since January at the 23,000-student Annandale campus and will make spot-checks soon at the other four campuses, in Alexandria, Loudoun, Manassas and Woodbridge.
- Associated Press
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