Courts and Crime

    Charges against a Lynchburg man, accused of taking indecent liberties with a minor female student he taught at a music school, will go to a Bedford County grand jury.

    On Fri-day Dec. 19, Luis Roberto Mendez, 42, was arrested and charged with two counts of taking indecent liberty with a child. He has been held in the Bedford Adult Detention Center on no bond since his arrest.
    At  a  bond  hearing  appeal, Judge James Updike deemed him as a flight risk, denying Mendez bond.

    A Bedford man is now a convicted sex offender after pleading no contest Tuesday in Bedford County Circuit Court to taking indecent liberties with a child.
    A no contest plea means the defendant neither admits or disputes a charge. It has the same effect as a guilty plea.
    According     to     Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Stephanie Ayers, the offenses happened in 2006. Mario Rivero, now 43, was accused of fondling a minor girl through her clothing.

    Local, state and federal law enforcement were working together this week in hopes of finding the bodies of  Sheila and Katherine Lyon, abducted four decades ago in Montgomery County, Maryland.
    The four-decade long investigation into the missing girls has been focused in the Taylor’s Mountain area of Bedford County since early last fall. A search for the bodies of the two girls has been ongoing over the rough terrain of the mountain.

    A 22-year-old Goodview man will spend 12 months in jail for an involuntary manslaughter conviction involving a single-vehicle accident that killed a Bedford man.

    Durham Westley Falabella received a 10-year-sentence with all but 12 months of that sentence suspended, on the involuntary manslaughter conviction. He also received a 12 month sentence on a misdemeanor driving under the influence conviction, which runs concurrently with the other sentence.