The woman that Marion Barry is alleged to have stalked, leading to his arrest last night, has been identified as Donna Watts, 40, a friend and companion of Barry’s for several years.

Watts was identified in an afternoon press conference by Barry spokesperson Natalie Williams; Barry himself did not attend, Williams said, because he was attending services at his church, Temple of Praise. Watts, a former campaign volunteer, has been seen with Barry on numerous occasions, including at April federal court hearing on his ongoing tax troubles. Less than two weeks later, the Washington Post reported that Barry had bought Watts a lavish fur coat at a charity event, outbidding CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

Williams described Watts as a “confidante” and “close friend” of Barry’s, then went on to describe her as a troubled person whom he had been helping for some time, having “lended his friendship and his support…through her many stages of instability.” That includes gifts of money.

Read More “Marion Barry on Arrest: Friend Donna Watts “Betrayed” Me” »

UPDATED 4:15 A.M.

Ward 8 Councilmember and former mayor Marion Barry was arrested Saturday night by a U.S. Park Police officer and charged with misdemeanor stalking.

According to Park Police spokesperson Sgt. David Schlosser, the incident leading to the arrest took place at around 8:45 p.m. An officer on patrol in Anacostia Park noticed a pair of cars in close proximity; the driver of one of the cars attempted to get the officer’s attention, and the officer subsequently pulled both cars over near the intersection of Anacostia Drive and Good Hope Road SE. The officer spoke first to the driver who had made the summons, an unidentified woman, and “she indicated there was some sort of discussion, dispute, angst,” Schlosser says.

Read More “Marion Barry Arrested by Park Police; Charged With Stalking” »

As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning!

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—”Taking a DMV Driver Test? Prepare to Bring Your Own Car“; “These D.C. Summer Jobs Are Smokin’ (Marijuana)”

Morning all. The federal government has the day off. The District government has the day off. But LLD is still here! And LL will, of course, be on the job tomorrow for the annual Palisades 4th of July Parade. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, when he gets back in town for that event, will be greeted by this unwelcome WaPo A1 headline: ‘Missteps in Crash’s Aftermath Dull Fenty’s Luster.’ Prime among those missteps is blowing off all but one of the Metro crash victim funerals, and not even bothering to send a proxy. Come on, why not deploy some of these best-and-brightest types you’ve hired and whom you’re always crowing about? Then you wouldn’t have read stuff about how ‘the mayor and his staff were noticeably absent from a string of memorials, funerals and wakes’ and how ‘Fenty showed up at services for train operator Jeanice McMillan, but he was an hour late and was wearing a light-colored summer suit that some said was inappropriate.’ Oof…even Terry Lynch gets in on the beatdown!

LL SEZ—Is this as bad as Marion Barry dallying at the 1987 Super Bowl during a massive snowstorm? Well, the ‘optics,’ as they say, are nearly as bad. Fenty was right here during the crash—the most important local disaster since 9/11—and he simply could have canceled his vacay, or sent the wife and kids on their way while he tended to some pretty standard mayoral duties. But he didn’t, neglecting one of the basic rules of local politics: Fruit baskets and ‘parking logistics’ are nice, but showing up matters. And, that no subordinates were detailed in his stead demonstrates either that (a) he’s insanely tone-deaf or (b) his need to be at the center of all public happenings in his administration is pathological.

AFTER THE JUMP—MoCo cops raid D.C. home—for ‘Prison Wives’; FEMS flack gloriously sells out his soon-to-be-former boss; meet Gabe Klein; and no more Reagan for National Airport?

Read More “Adrian Fenty, the No-Show: Loose Lips Daily” »

The District government’s belt-tightening has now extended into its vehicular policies.

In an memo issued June 23, Attorney General Peter Nickles addressed two issues: the use of city-owned cars in Department of Motor Vehicles driver tests, and the use of city employees’ own private cars while on government business.

Regarding the former, the memo [PDF] notes that as of Aug. 1, DMV “will no longer use government vehicles for its driver’s tests.” That, Nickles writes, is due to “weak indemnification language” in the waivers the test-takers have to sign—those require the driver to take responsibility for any damage to the cars, unless they are “not financially capable of doing so.” Such a policy, Nickles writes, “makes it virtually impossible for the District to successfully obtain reimbursement” in the case of an accident.

This, of course, poses the question: How are unlicensed drivers supposed to find a car to take their test in? And, even if they can, how are they supposed to get the car to the test site?

Read More “Taking a DMV Driver Test? Prepare to Bring Your Own Car” »

Gotta love the Summer Youth Employment Program: Nothing like a hard day’s work to teach kids a thing or two about holding a job and personal responsibility and keep them away from things like gangs, violence, and illicit substances.

Well, gangs and violence, anyway.

A City Desk reader captured this sight with a cell phone cam yesterday morning, around 10:30 a.m., on the 1500 block of Marion Street NW:

Read More “These D.C. Summer Jobs Are Smokin’ (Marijuana)” »

As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning!

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—”Gay Marriage in Washington, D.C.: Coming Tuesday at 12:01 a.m.

IN LL WEEKLY—LL’s lights are out this week, preempted by WCP’s fab Housing Complex Day coverage.

Morning all. The WaPo editorial board handed a spanking today to the D.C. Council, calling ‘ill-advised’ attempts by Councilmembers Mary Cheh and Phil Mendelson to prevent broadcasts of Ronald Moten’s ‘open deposition’ on the fishy fire truck. ‘Even more troubling is that a council whose members are so obtuse about what the public is entitled to know will now apparently have total control of a public access channel….Perhaps there were reasons for keeping [Moten's] testimony secret, but if so the council should have figured out lawful ways of keeping the questioning confidential. It cannot retroactively take something off the public record. With the council’s decision to take control of the channel devoted to council proceedings, we can only imagine what else—a misstatement? an embarrassing moment?—might be deemed unsuitable for public consumption.’

AFTER THE JUMP—The fateful ‘Wee-Z’ bond; Fenty alleged to order tear-gassing of suspect; political strings said to be pulled on Gold Coast sidewalk installation; gay books back on summer reading lists; Colombians flood D.C. Jail; and how OTR sent a bad refund check to the wrong guy.

Read More “The Fateful Wee-Z Bond: Loose Lips Daily” »

The D.C. Council has passed a gay marriage recognition bill. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty has signed it. The Board of Elections and Ethics has rejected a referendum effort aimed at overturning it. A Superior Court judge has upheld that decision.

So, barring intervention from the D.C. Court of Appeals—and, according to a court spokesperson, no appeal was filed by close of business today—gay marriages will very soon be legal in the District of Columbia.

Brian Flowers, the general counsel for the D.C. Council and the official counter of congressional review days, tells LL today that, by his count, the review period will end at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, July 7.

Read More “Gay Marriage in Washington, D.C.: Coming Tuesday at 12:01 a.m.” »

As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning!

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—”How Harriette Walters Made Up For Her Crimes; “D.C. Council Asserts Control Over Channel 13; “Civil Gang Injunctions Again Foiled by D.C. Council“; “Superior Court Judge Denies Gay Marriage Referendum”

Morning all. Harriette Walters, the greatest, most audacious thief in the history of District government, will spend 17-and-a-half years in federal prison for her theft of nearly $50 million from 1989 to 2007 while working at the Office of Tax and Revenue. Read LL’s account of the sentencing, in Judge Emmet G. Sullivan’s courtroom; Del Wilber covers for WaPo; Scott McCabe for Examiner; Sarah Abruzzese for WaTimes; Sam Ford for WJLA-TV/NC8; Tom Sherwood for WRC-TV; Bruce Johnson for WUSA-TV; and Karen Gray Houston for WTTG-TV. The eagle ears of Wilber and others caught this killer quote uttered by Walters: “If you put me back in there today…I could get each of you a check.”

AFTER THE JUMP—Fishy fire truck masterminds finally named in WaPo; Jim Graham wants taxi medallions; gay marriage opponents running out of legal avenues; Kris Baumann being illegally investigated by MPD?

Read More “Goodbye, Mother Harriette: Loose Lips Daily” »

“She had a nice run; now it’s time to pay the piper. That’s all there is to it.”

That’s what LL heard from a fellow spectator in Courtroom 24 of the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse this morning, while we waited for the greatest thief of public funds in District government history, Harriette Walters, to enter, along with man who had her future in his hands, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan.

Truth be told, Sullivan’s role was not quite that dramatic. Walters and her attorney, Steven C. Tabackman and worked out a plea deal with federal prosecutors, so it was left to Sullivan only to decide whether Walters would get 15 years of incarceration or 18 years. Still, those three years were debated, quite passionately at times, by Tabackman, Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Lynch, and by Walters herself.

Walters entered the courtroom dressed in a blue garment, her hair short and braided. She wore glasses that she took off and placed on the table for most of the proceeding. At the beginning of the hearing, Sullivan brought Walters, 52, up to a podium answer a few perfunctory questions; she then sat back down while Tabackman did what he could to spare three years of her life.

Read More “How Harriette Walters Made Up For Her Crimes” »

As LL first broke yesterday, the D.C. Council is embroiled in a dispute with Mayor Adrian M. Fenty over control of Channel 13—the District’s public access channel devoted to airing council proceedings.

The dispute is rooted in last Thursday’s ‘open deposition’ of Peaceoholics co-founder Ronald Moten—an unorthodox proceeding, to be sure. As a deposition, Councilmembers Mary Cheh and Phil Mendelson requested that the television recording not be aired on Channel 13.

Long story short, the proceeding has been aired repeatedly since. That led the D.C. Council today to take up emergency legislation saying that it has exclusive control over the content of Channel 13.

In brief comments prior to the vote, both Cheh and Mendelson said that the executive branch had exerted influence on the Office of Cable Television, and its director, Eric Richardson. Mendelson, in fact, said that Richardson “was specifically directed by the highest member of the executive branch to run this tape and run it again.”

Read More “D.C. Council Asserts Control Over Channel 13″ »

Two weeks ago, the D.C. Council engaged in a knock-down fight over anti-crime legislation—in particular, over so-called ‘civil gang injunctions.’ They were at it again today, rehashing the debate regarding the permanent version of the bill. But the outcome was much the same.

A compromise of sorts was in the works today: Councilmembers Jim Graham, Jack Evans, and Muriel Bowser, all supporters of the gang injunctions, proposed allowing the measures for six months in their own wards—1, 2, and 4, respectively.

That proposal didn’t get very far with their colleagues.

Read More “Civil Gang Injunctions Again Foiled by D.C. Council” »

Judge Judith Retchin has ruled [PDF] that a referendum on recognizing out-of-state gay marriages may not proceed.

Retchin was widely expected to ignore the substance of the referendum proponents’ argument—i.e., that the District’s human rights law does not, in fact, prevent the measure from appearing on the ballot, as the Board of Elections and Ethics ruled earlier this month. Instead, she was expected to rule only on whether she could stop the marriage law from taking effect next week—an important question, since that would prevent a referendum and render any other legal arguments moot.

But her ruling is broad.

Read More “Superior Court Judge Denies Gay Marriage Referendum” »

As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning!

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—”D.C. Council Riled Over TV Airing of Fire Truck Testimony; “White House Again Fends Off D.C. License Plate Questions

Morning all. Del Wilber tees up this morning’s Harriette Walters sentencing for WaPo: ‘Was she a deeply insecure and lonely civil servant who stole tax refunds out of an insatiable desire to be seen as a benefactor? Or was she a manipulative and greedy employee who pilfered the District’s coffers to selfishly fund an extravagant lifestyle? Federal prosecutors and Walters’s attorney will skirmish over those questions today in federal court during Walters’s sentencing in the $48.1 million, nearly two-decade-long embezzlement from the D.C. government. Under the terms of Walters’s plea deal, which still awaits the approval of U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, Walters faces 15 to 18 years in prison.’ Says her lawyer: ‘Harriette Walters is a pretty complex lady….She gave the District exemplary service on the one hand and on the other engaged in conduct that even she will say should result in the kind of serious punishment she faces.”‘

Stay tuned at City Desk today for all Walters-related developments.

AFTER THE JUMP—Car lot crackdown continues; saying goodbye to the Wherleys; is FEMS too black?; and what happened to all the murders?

Read More “Judgment Day for Mother Harriette: Loose Lips Daily” »

Stop holding your breath, folks: It’s become clear that President Barack Obama has absolutely no intention of putting Taxation Without Representation license plates on his limousine.

ABC News reporter Yunji de Nies got Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on the record at this afternoon’s press briefing:

Read More “White House Again Fends Off D.C. License Plate Questions” »

The fishy fire truck testimony delivered last Thursday by Peaceoholics co-founder Ronald Moten before the D.C. Council was plenty dramatic, but the drama apparently did not end with the pound of the gavel.

Since then, a classic council-executive scuffle has broken out over broadcasts of the proceeding on city cable, with allegations flying that Mayor Adrian M. Fenty himself has become personally involved.

Because Thursday’s proceeding was considered a “public deposition” rather than a council hearing (it was supposed to be behind closed doors until Moten demanded otherwise), the councilmembers heading up the fire truck investigation—Mary Cheh and Phil Mendelson—determined that its contents should not be disseminated. That’s in keeping with the usual council practice on depositions, which are kept under wraps, so other witnesses won’t change their testimony to make their stories consistent (Never mind that LL and other reporters already did plenty of disseminating.)

Read More “D.C. Council Riled Over TV Airing of Fire Truck Testimony” »