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Evidence fight continues as Wone trial nears & more

Published

16 years ago

April 29, 2010

Evidence fight continues as Wone trial nears

The judge presiding over the upcoming obstruction of justice trial for three gay men implicated in the 2006 murder of D.C. attorney Robert Wone will issue a final decision next week on witnesses and evidence admissible in the trial, including evidence about the sexual proclivities of the three defendants.

During an April 23 status hearing, D.C. Superior Court Judge Lynn Leibovitz set a final pre-trial status hearing for May 5, at which time she promised to rule, among other things, on whether the government can submit evidence showing the defendants used sex toys, including restraints, at their home.

Joseph Price, Victor Zaborsky and Dylan Ward are charged with obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice and evidence tampering in connection with the stabbing death of Wone inside the Dupont Circle area house where the three defendants lived in August 2006.

Prosecutors have pointed to an autopsy report saying Wone appeared to have been “immobilized” when he was stabbed three times in a guest bedroom at the house. They have since backed away from an earlier theory that Wone was immobilized from a paralytic drug, suggesting they may argue at trial that he was restrained before being stabbed.

The defense has filed motions asking Leibovitz to bar the government from submitting evidence or witnesses showing that the crime scene was “cleaned” of blood stains; that Wone was sexually assaulted or immobilized by a drug; and that Wone may have been bound by “restraints.” Another defense motion calls for barring the government from submitting evidence about the sex lives of the three gay men, including any S&M-related sexual activities.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, say they may file a motion seeking to bar the defense from calling as a witness a cardiologist who’s expected to testify that a single stab wound to the heart could immobilize a person. The defense was expected to use the witness to counter the autopsy finding of no signs of a struggle or movement by Wone when he was stabbed.

Authorities have yet to charge anyone with the murder itself. The trial is scheduled to begin May 10.

The men have pleaded not guilty and say they believe an intruder killed Wone after entering the house while they were asleep. Wone, a friend of the men, was spending the night at their house after working late at his nearby office. Wone was married to a woman, and his family says he was straight.

LOU CHIBBARO JR.

LGBT activists absent from Gray campaign kickoff

Similar to D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s opening campaign event earlier this month, nearly all of the city’s well-known LGBT activists stayed away from City Council Chairman Vincent Gray’s mayoral campaign kickoff event.

Activists following city politics are speculating that many LGBT city residents are taking a wait-and-see posture on the mayor’s race and are not ready to take sides. Fenty and Gray both have strong records on LGBT issues. Fenty signed the city’s same-sex marriage law in December, and Gray was a strong advocate for the measure in his role as Council chairman.

Although he did not mention Fenty by name during the April 24 campaign kickoff, Gray leveled strong criticism of the mayor’s leadership style, saying the mayor’s office has alienated many city residents in his efforts to push through reforms for the city’s public schools and other programs.

Gray said he supports school reform but promised to work more closely with teachers, parents and principals.

Also similar to the mayor’s opening campaign event, Gray did not mention LGBT issues. He chided Fenty for being a divisive force in the city, but did not mention that both he and Fenty received an equal amount of criticism from some of the city’s ministers and socially conservative residents for allegedly dividing the city through their support of same-sex marriage.

Gray told reporters after his kickoff speech before a large audience at the Historical Society of Washington that he decided to limit the topics covered in his address to broad themes dealing with his plans to unite the city. He said he would address a wide range of other issues, including same-sex marriage, in future campaign appearances and events.

Among the few gay Democratic activists attending the kickoff were Paul Kuntzler, co-founder of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the city’s largest LGBT political group; and Stein member Christopher Fitzgerald. The club’s current officers were not present. Stein President Jeffrey Richardson has said the club’s rules require the officers to remain neutral until the club makes an official endorsement of a mayoral candidate.

Other out gays attending the event were Ronald Collins, the City Council’s deputy secretary; and Christopher Murray, the clerk of the Council’s Committee of the Whole, which Gray chairs. Also attending was gay activist Kenneth Borden and D.C. Nightlife Association Executive Director Skip Coburn, whose group represents gay and straight bars and nightclubs in matters before the city. Coburn said he attended as an observer and hasn’t made up his mind on which candidate to support.

David Meadows, a former Stein Club president and member of the D.C. Democratic State Committee, said he also attended as an observer and is neutral in the mayor’s race.

LOU CHIBBARO JR.

Earline Budd honored for trans advocacy work

Veteran D.C. transgender activist Earline Budd has been named the 2010 recipient of the International Foundation for Gender Education’s Trinity Award, which recognizes outstanding work on behalf of the transgender community.

“The Trinity Award honors our heroes: living transgender persons who have performed extraordinary acts of courage and love in service to the transgender community,” says a letter announcing Budd’s selection for the award.

“I know of no one more deserving of this recognition,” Denise Leclair, a Foundation official, told Budd in the letter.

Budd received the award at the organization’s annual conference April 23 at the Alexandria Mark Center Hilton Hotel in Alexandria, Va.

“I am always pleased at doing something that will continue to put the District of Columbia out front,” Budd said in an e-mail to LGBT activists. “This award tells me that with your continued support I am doing something right. I really appreciate each of you being in some way a part of my life and say thank you.”

LOU CHIBBARO JR.

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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

Published

21 hours ago

December 12, 2025

Staff reports

Loudoun County Public Schools building. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

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

Published

1 day ago

December 12, 2025

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

A scene from the 2024 Capital Pride Festival. (Washington Blade file photo by Emily Hanna)

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 250^th 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 80^th birthday and other events related to the U.S. 250^th 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 14^th and T Streets, N.W. and traveling along 14^th 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 2^nd Street near the U.S. Capitol, to around 7^th 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

Published

4 days ago

December 9, 2025

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

Capital Pride Alliance announced three women will lead its board. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

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.