Local
Wone hearing to discuss S&M devices
A prosecutors’ request to introduce evidence that police found a collection of S&M devices in the home of three gay men implicated in the 2006 murder of Washington attorney Robert Wone is expected to be debated Friday during a D.C. Superior Court hearing.
The hearing follows a prosecutors’ February court filing seeking permission to submit evidence at trial alleging that defendants Joseph Price, Victor Zaborsky and Dylan Ward engaged in “conduct” not identified in the charges pending against them that could further link them to the murder. The trial is scheduled to begin May 10.
The three have been indicted on charges of obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and evidence tampering in connection with Wone’s August 2006 stabbing death inside their house near Dupont Circle. Authorities have yet to charge anyone with the murder itself.
The men have pleaded not guilty to the charges and have said an unknown intruder killed Wone after entering their home through a rear door while they slept in their respective bedrooms.
According to the prosecutors’ filing last month, the new evidence includes a collection of sex toys and S&M books and manuals seized from the defendants’ home. Some of the devices are used to tie and restrain someone engaged in S&M activity while other devices seized are used to administer an electric shock to a person’s genitals, the prosecutors say.
While noting that these devices are not illegal and their use does not constitute a crime, prosecutors say in the court filing that “said evidence clearly passes” federal rules of evidence “as its probative value is exceedingly high and the prejudicial effect is quite low.”
Police have said Wone was restrained, immobilized with a paralytic drug, sexually assaulted and then stabbed to death, most likely in a guest bedroom in the upscale townhouse where the three men lived at the time.
Legal observers say the request to use the S&M devices as evidence at trial suggests that prosecutors might use it to develop a possible motive for the murder that the defense claims is lacking in the government’s case.
But in a separate court filing in February, defense attorneys accuse prosecutors of seeking to use the S&M devices, which the defense labels “erotic accessories,” as sensational and inflammatory “evidence” that has no relevance to the case and which would prejudice the jury.
“Here there is no evidence that Wone was restrained in any fashion and absolutely no evidence that any one of the erotic accessories was used on Wone for any purpose, never mind in connection with his death,” defense attorneys say in their filing.
Among the items seized from the Swann Street home of the three men, according to the prosecutors filing, are “floggers,” “assorted dildos,” “scrotal harness with weight attachments,” and devices designed to administer an electric shock to various parts of someone’s body, including the penis and anal area.
The 39-page defense filing, among other things, disputes an assertion by prosecutors’ that an autopsy finding traces of Wone’s own semen inside his rectum and on his genitals is evidence that he was sexually assaulted before being murdered. Defense attorneys say in their filing that they will present testimony at trial by expert witnesses showing that the traces of Wone’s semen on his body did not contain any sperm cells.
The lack of sperm cells indicates that the semen found on the body was due to a normal discharge of various bodily fluids including urine and seminal fluids that occurs when men die and internal muscles relax, the defense filing says.
“There were no obvious, external signs of sexual assault, restraint or electro-torture,” says the defense filing. “Indeed, the government itself did not claim that Wone was sexually assaulted until after the FBI tested the forensic swabs [of Wone’s genital and anal areas] more than two years after Wone’s death,” it says.
Investigators said Wone, 32, who was a college friend of Price, spent the night at the men’s home after working late in his downtown office. Wone was married to a woman and lived in Oakon, Va. Family members have said he was straight.
Price and Zaborsky, who are domestic partners, and Ward told police an intruder killed Wone after entering the home while they were asleep in their respective bedrooms.
Police and prosecutors dispute that claim, saying there’s no evidence of a break-in. They point to an autopsy showing Wone suffered from three “clean,” surgical-like stab wounds, with no signs of struggle. They also have said the autopsy indicates the wounds could only have been inflicted if Wone was immobilized by a drug.
But the defense team says in its court filings that the autopsy and chemical tests of the body have not found any traces of a paralytic drug, and it disputes the government’s claim that such drugs quickly dissipate within the body and can’t be found by chemical tests. The defense filing does not address the issue of the “clean” stab wounds that prosecutors say could only happen if a person is immobilized by an anesthesia-type drug.
Killer ‘known to’ men?
In their Feb. 5 court filing, which was made public Feb. 15, prosecutors reiterate earlier statements that they lacked evidence to charge anyone with the murder itself. But for the first time, they say that they believe “the killer is someone known to and being protected by” Price, Zaborsky and Ward.
“Given the sophistication and success of the defendants’ cover-up of the murder of Robert Wone, the evidence obtained to date does not yet establish beyond a reasonable doubt who actually killed Robert Wone,” says the court filing.
“Although the government investigation into the murder continues, there is ample admissible evidence demonstrating the killer is someone known to the defendants, and not, as the defendants told the police, an unknown, unseen, unheard, phantom intruder who entered without force, took nothing from the home, went to the farthest reaches of the second floor of the home, stabbed Robert Wone (while Robert Wone lay immobile), and then fled without a sound and without taking any item from the home or disturbing anything therein,” it says.
The government’s filing also for the first time suggests that Joseph Price’s brother, Michael Price, could be a person of interest linked to the Wone murder.
In October 2006, two months after the murder, D.C. police arrested Michael Price and an accomplice on a charge of burglarizing the Swann Street home where the murder took place, saying they entered the then vacant home using a key that Joseph Price had given Michael Price sometime earlier. At the time, police said they had no evidence to link the burglary to the murder.
In their court filing last month, prosecutors say they found that Michael Price had been enrolled in a course at Montgomery College, studying to be a phlebotomist from June through August of 2006. A phlebotomist is trained to draw blood from patients at hospitals or other medical facilities through the use of special hypodermic needles.
“Course attendance records reflect that Michael Price attended each and every scheduled class beginning on June 7, 2006, and running through July 31, 2006,” the government filing says. “However, those same records reflect that the first time he missed class was on Aug. 2, 2006, the night Robert Wone was killed.”
The filing adds in a footnote, “It should be noted that Michael Price’s partner, Louis Hinton, provided an alibi for Michael Price at the time of the murder.”
In a related development, defense attorneys last week filed motions asking that the case against Joseph Price, Zaborsky and Ward be “severed” so that each one would have a separate trial.
These and the filings by prosecutors seeking to introduce the S&M-related evidence are expected to be debated at Friday’s court status hearing before Judge Lynn Leibovitz.
Virginia
DOJ seeks to join lawsuit against Loudoun County over trans student in locker room
Three male high school students suspended after complaining about classmate
The Justice Department has asked to join a federal lawsuit against Loudoun County Public Schools over the way it handled the case of three male high school students who complained about a transgender student in a boys’ locker room.
The Washington Blade earlier this year reported Loudoun County public schools suspended the three boys and launched a Title IX investigation into whether they sexually harassed the student after they said they felt uncomfortable with their classmate in the locker room at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn.
The parents of two of the boys filed a lawsuit against Loudoun County public schools in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. The Richmond-based Founding Freedoms Law Center and America First Legal, which White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller co-founded, represent them.
The Justice Department in a Dec. 8 press release announced that “it filed legal action against the Loudoun County (Va.) School Board (Loudoun County) for its denial of equal protection based on religion.”
“The suit alleges that Loudoun County applied Policy 8040, which requires students and faculty to accept and promote gender ideology, to two Christian, male students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” reads the press release.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the press release said “students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate.”
“Loudoun County’s decision to advance and promote gender ideology tramples on the rights of religious students who cannot embrace ideas that deny biological reality,” said Dhillon.
Outgoing Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and outgoing Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares in May announced an investigation into the case.
The Virginia Department of Education in 2023 announced the new guidelines for trans and nonbinary students for which Youngkin asked. Equality Virginia and other advocacy groups claim they, among other things, forcibly out trans and nonbinary students.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in February launched an investigation into whether Loudoun County and four other Northern Virginia school districts’ policies in support of trans and nonbinary students violate Title IX and President Donald Trump’s executive order that prohibits federally funded educational institutions from promoting “gender ideology.”
District of Columbia
Capital Pride announces change in date for 2026 D.C. Pride parade and festival
Events related to U.S. 250th anniversary and Trump birthday cited as reasons for change
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C. based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, has announced it is changing the dates for the 2026 Capital Pride Parade and Festival from the second weekend in June to the third weekend.
“For over a decade, Capital Pride has taken place during the second weekend in June, but in 2026, we are shifting our dates in response to the city’s capacity due to major events and preparations for the 250th anniversary of the United States,” according to a Dec. 9 statement released by Capital Pride Alliance.
The statement says the parade will take place on Saturday, June 20, 2026, with the festival and related concert taking place on June 21.
“This change ensures our community can gather safely and without unnecessary barriers,” the statement says. “By moving the celebration, we are protecting our space and preserving Pride as a powerful act of visibility, solidarity, and resistance,” it says.
Ryan Bos, the Capital Pride Alliance CEO and President, told the Washington Blade the change in dates came after the group conferred with D.C. government officials regarding plans for a number of events in the city on the second weekend in June. Among them, he noted, is a planned White House celebration of President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and other events related to the U.S. 250th anniversary, which are expected to take place from early June through Independence Day on July 4.
The White House has announced plans for a large June 14, 2026 celebration on the White House south lawn of Trump’s 80th birthday that will include a large-scale Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event involving boxing and wrestling competition.
Bos said the Capital Pride Parade will take place along the same route it has in the past number of years, starting at 14th and T Streets, N.W. and traveling along 14th Street to Pennsylvania Ave., where it will end. He said the festival set for the following day will also take place at its usual location on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., between 2nd Street near the U.S. Capitol, to around 7th Street, N.W.
“Our Pride events thrive because of the passion and support of the community,” Capital Pride Board Chair Anna Jinkerson said in the statement. “In 2026, your involvement is more important than ever,” she said.
District of Columbia
Three women elected leaders of Capital Pride Alliance board
Restructured body includes chair rather than president as top leader
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, announced it has restructured its board of directors and elected for the first time three women to serve as leaders of the board’s Executive Committee.
“Congratulations to our newly elected Executive Officers, making history as Capital Pride Alliance’s first all-women Board leadership,” the group said in a statement.
“As we head into 2026 with a bold new leadership structure, we’re proud to welcome Anna Jinkerson as Board Chair, Kim Baker as Board Treasurer, and Taylor Lianne Chandler as Board Secretary,” the statement says.
In a separate statement released on Nov. 20, Capital Pride Alliance says the restructured Board now includes the top leadership posts of Chair, Treasurer, and Secretary, replacing the previous structure of President and Vice President as the top board leaders.
It says an additional update to the leadership structure includes a change in title for longtime Capital Pride official Ryan Bos from executive director to chief executive officer and president.
According to the statement, June Crenshaw, who served as acting deputy director during the time the group organized WorldPride 2025 in D.C., will now continue in that role as permanent deputy director.
The statement provides background information on the three newly elected women Board leaders.
• Anna Jinkerson (chair), who joined the Capital Pride Alliance board in 2022, previously served as the group’s vice president for operations and acting president. “A seasoned non-profit executive, she currently serves as Assistant to the President and CEO and Chief of Staff at Living Cities, a national member collaborative of leading philanthropic foundations and financial institutions committed to closing income and wealth gaps in the United States and building an economy that works for everyone.”
• Kim Baker (treasurer) is a “biracial Filipino American and queer leader,” a “retired, disabled U.S. Army veteran with more than 20 years of service and extensive experience in finance, security, and risk management.” She has served on the Capital Pride Board since 2018, “bringing a proven track record of steady, principled leadership and unwavering dedication to the LGBTQ+ community.”
• Taylor Lianne Chandler (Secretary) is a former sign language interpreter and crisis management consultant. She “takes office as the first intersex and trans-identifying member of the Executive Committee.” She joined the Capital Pride Board in 2019 and previously served as executive producer from 2016 to 2018.
Bos told the Washington Blade in a Dec. 2 interview that the Capital Pride board currently has 12 members, and is in the process of interviewing additional potential board members.
“In January we will be announcing in another likely press release the full board,” Bos said. “We are finishing the interview process of new board members this month,” he said. “And they will take office to join the board in January.”
Bos said the organization’s rules set a cap of 25 total board members, but the board, which elects its members, has not yet decided how many additional members it will select and a full 25-member board is not required.
The Nov. 20 Capital Pride statement says the new board executive members will succeed the organization’s previous leadership team, which included Ashley Smith, who served as president for eight years before he resigned earlier this year; Anthony Musa, who served for seven years as vice president of board engagement; Natalie Thompson, who served eight years on the executive committee; and Vince Micone, who served for eight years as vice president of operations.
“I am grateful for the leadership, dedication, and commitment shown by our former executive officers — Ashley, Natalie, Anthony, and Vince — who have been instrumental in CPA’s growth and the exceptional success of WorldPride 2025,” Bos said in the statement.
“I look forward to collaborating with Anna in her new role, as well as Kim and Taylor in theirs, as we take on the important work ahead, prepare for Capital Pride 2026, and expand our platform and voice through Pride365,” Bos said.
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