DATE: Friday, September 12, 1997            TAG: 9709120602

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SUSIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:   57 lines

MAN CONVICTED IN SUFFOLK OF CAUSING CRASH BY TOSSING ROCK

Andre H. Swan's pitching arm earned him a prison sentence Thursday.

Swan, 21, was convicted of throwing a baseball-sized rock through the windshield of Evan Spivey's truck, knocking Spivey unconscious and causing his Chevy Tahoe to slam into a guard rail last spring.

Swan narrowly missed being charged with murder, said Circuit Judge E. Everett Bagnell, who tried the case.

The incident ``almost killed Mr. Spivey,'' a high school baseball star, and four of his teammates, Bagnell said. ``It could not have been a more dangerous act.''

Swan was convicted of malicious wounding and throwing a missile into an occupied vehicle with intent to maim.

``If ever there was a case of something malicious, this is it,'' said W. Randolph Carter Jr., an assistant commonwealth's attorney who prosecuted the case.

``Only by the grace of God, they are all here.''

Throwing rocks at passing vehicles was not a random act of violence, Bagnell said. ``The only thing random about that was the victim.''

Spivey, 17, didn't know what hit him as he drove along U.S. Route 17 toward Churchland with his friends to eat after a tournament on April 3.

He had surgery that night to repair bones in his face, and expects to have plastic surgery this fall.

A senior at Nansemond River High School, he hopes to play baseball in college next year.

He's relieved that the trial is over and thankful that his injuries weren't more severe, he said. But like his parents and friends, he struggles to comprehend the senselessness of the act. ``I don't understand that, especially for a 21-year-old.''

The others in the truck with him were not seriously injured.

Swan offered police two versions of where he was that night - at his Belleville Meadows home nearby or at Northern Shores Recreation Center, playing basketball with two women until 9 p.m. Recreation supervisor Tony Colden said they were not there.

Four teen-agers, who also live in the Belleville Meadows apartments, said they went with Swan to Route 17, near the Interstate 664 overpass, that night.

Harold Scott, 15, said he threw a stick at the Tahoe and that he saw Swan throw the rock.

The others were on the other side of the overpass and didn't see the rock thrown.

Scott's testimony was part of an agreement, allowing him to plead guilty to accessory after the fact.

Bagnell ordered Swan's $10,000 bond revoked, ordering him to jail until sentencing on Nov. 14. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Andre H. Swan, 21, was convicted in Suffolk Thursday of causing an

accident on

Route 17 last spring. KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT TRAFFIC MALICIOUS WOUNDING

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