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Courts and Crime

  • Bedford woman must repay close to $2,000

        A former employee of Dollar General in Forest will have to repay close to $2,000 to the company as part of a plea agreement reached in Bedford County Circuit Court last Friday.
        Caitlin Michelle Throne, 22 of Bedford, was sentenced to two years in prison with all of that time suspended for embezzling $1953.04 from Dollar General. She was arrested on the charge in August 2014 and entered a guilty plea last April.

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  • Bond hearing held Tuesday in former police officer’s child porn case

        Brian McAlexander, a former Bedford police officer, has been granted bond.
        McAlexander has been charged with distributing child pornography. He has been held in the Blue Ridge Regional Jail since his arrest on Feb. 5.
        McAlexander has been charged with one count of distribution of child pornography and five counts of distribution of child pornography, subsequent offense.

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  • Lynchburg man will seek trial for taking knife to man’s throat

    Instead of entering a plea, the 37-year-old Lynchburg man, accused of cutting a man across his face and neck last September, is now planning to seek a jury trial, scheduled for March 29.
        Michael Dale Fitzgerald was in court last Friday afternoon for what was originally scheduled as a plea, but turned into a motions hearing to have the trial date set. Fitzgerald was arrested Sept. 28 for the alleged attack which had occurred Sept. 23.

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  • Bedford woman is thankful to be jailed

        Testimony in Circuit Court last Tuesday described  Rebecka Lynn Jones, 33, as being as much of a victim as she was a criminal. Jones faced sentencing after being found guilty of manufacturing methamphetamine.
        She had already spent six months in jail at the time of her sentencing and described being in jail as a lifesaving experience.
        “My prayers were answered by being put in jail,” she said.

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  • Back in prison — this time for 15 years

        Since 1994, Larry Preston Caldwell Jr. has been in and out of court including for eight felony sentencing events – and he’s never successfully completed a term of probation before facing new charges.

    `    Caldwell, 40, will have the next 15 years in prison to think about that after being sentenced for a malicious wounding charge and a probation violation after being out of prison for only eight months on similar charges.

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  • Aponte in court

        A motion to suppress a blood alcohol concentration test (BAC) conducted on a woman accused of driving while drunk during an accident in which her 6-year-old son was killed was denied during a hearing Tuesday in Bedford County Circuit Court.
        Judge James Updike said there was enough probable cause and exigent circumstances to allow the test, though in essence it was a warrantless search.

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  • Charges filed against former officer

    For 26 years he wore the uniform of the Bedford Police Department; on Tuesday morning he was wearing an orange jumpsuit from the local jail.

        Last Friday, Feb. 5, former Bedford Police officer Brian McAlexander was indicted by a Bedford County Grand Jury on six felony indictments for possession of child pornography. He was arrested in Henry County by Henry County Sheriff’s deputies.

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  • Thaxton man sentenced for breaking into churches

        A Thaxton man will spend four years in prison for breaking into two Thaxton churches last May.
        Cody Nicolas Beverly, 23,  pleaded guilty last November to the two charges, along with a trespassing charge. Last Friday Judge James Updike sentenced Beverly to 10 years in prison, suspended after serving four years.
        While in prison, Beverly will be ordered to go through the Department of Corrections Therapeutic Behavior Program.

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  • Salem man faces malicious wounding charges

    A former employee of Sonic in Bedford has been arrested for breaking into the fast-food restaurant.
        Cedric Choe Noell, 29, is also facing charges of embezzlement from the restaurant.
        According to Lt. Shannon Walker of the Bedford Police Department, officers responded to a call Monday at 6:30 a.m. about the break in, which had been discovered by one of the restaurant’s managers who had arrived to open the store.

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  • Smith sentenced on drug, neglect charges

        Michael Anthony Smith, whose wife is spending more than 50 years in prison for killing their child, will spend four years in prison on charges that came about as a result of that death investigation.
        Smith, 27, who cooperated with authorities in the prosecution of his wife, Shana Marie Witt, for killing their son two years ago, had previously pleaded guilty to a felony count of conspiracy to manufacture meth and two counts of child neglect.

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