Posts Tagged ‘Vasile Graure’
Good Guys Trial: Closing Statements
The Good Guys arson trial is coming to the end. The jury is hearing closing statements now in the trial of Vasile Graure. I’ll have updates on the arguments later in the day.
Good Guys Trial: Graure Does Not Testify
Attorneys for Vasile Graure opened and rested their case this afternoon in the case of last year’s fire at Glover Park strip club Good Guys. After calling five witnesses to the stand—including two employees of the Public Defender Service of the District of Columbia and three MPD officers—Judge Robert Richter asked Graure if he’d like to testify on his own behalf. Andrew Ferguson and Premal Dharia shook their heads no. “No,” Graure responded. Richter asked if he was sure. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and so far, I say no, I can’t decide,” said Graure.
Good Guys Trial: The Prosecution Rests
The government called its last witness this morning in its case against Vasile Graure, the man accused of setting fire to Glover Park strip club Good Guys last year. After listening to the testimony of MPD detective Frank Molina, who detailed the police’s procedures used to identify the suspect, the jury filed out. Then, the defense moved to have as many as eight of the charges against Graure dropped. Among other charges—arson, mayhem, burglary—Graure is charged with eight counts of assault with intent to kill.
Good Guys Trial: The Hotel Room
Detective Todd Gray, a 19-year veteran of the D.C. police department, is assigned to the arson task force. He was involved in securing the search warrant for Vasile Graure’s arrest following the Nov. 3, 2007 fire. He entered Graure’s hotel room at the Alexandria Days Inn on the night of his arrest.
Inside, first aid gauze sat near a hotel chair. Police turned over a trash can outside the bathroom into the sink. Inside, he says, they found burnt skin mixed with “miscellaneous food items”—a can of “some type of Spaghetti-Os” and candy bar wrappers. A wallet held a Nevada non-drivers I.D. and a Master Card identifying Graure by name.
Good Guys Trial: The Regular
Frank Raucci, a 59-year-old Takoma Park electronics technician, has been frequenting Good Guys for six to seven years. He knows the waitresses, and is a friend of manager Kathleen Lazorchack. He’s a regular. When he stopped into the club on the evening of Nov. 3, 2007, he sat down in front of stripper Gabriella’s stage and ordered a beer, waiting to speak to Lazorchack. In front of him was another customer he’d never seen before. Gabriella waved to Raucci in between moves. He got up and walked up to the stage to greet her. The other customer turned and watched him watch Gabriella, he says.
Good Guys Trial: The Arrest
MPD Detective Richard Espinosa is currently stationed in Djibouti, Africa, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. Last year, he helped arrest Vasile Graure, the defendant in the Good Guys arson case. Graure was arrested in Alexandria’s Days Inn several days after the fire. Espinosa testified today that police had put Graure under surveillance for about a day before he and another detective secured a warrant for Graure’s arrest. When Espinosa arrived at the hotel and entered Graure’s room, he noted what he described as “second degree burns” on his hands. The prosecution entered into evidence police photos of Graure’s arms, handcuffed behind his back. His arms appear bright red and chafed from the wrists up to the elbows.
Good Guys Trial: The Gas Can
Vasile Graure returned to court today as the government continued its case against him. Graure is charged with eight counts of assault with intent to kill, one count of aggravated assault, one count of mayhem, two of burglary, one of arson, and one of property destruction exceeding $200, in connection with a fire in Glover Park strip club Good Guys last year. Graure—who appeared with a freshly shaved head, white shirt, and black polka-dot tie—had suffered an infection of the toe last Thursday but appeared healthy in the court room this morning. [Full disclosure: The Sexist missed trial on Friday].
At 10:30 this morning, the prosecution called Arefaine Berhane, an employee of the Glover Park Chevron station, to the stand. Berhane, who is Eritrean, speaks English at the Chevron station but appeared with a translator in court.
Good Guys Trial: Strip Club On Wheels
Yesterday, the prosecution in the case against accused strip club fire-starter Vasile Graure entered into evidence a sizable exhibit: A scale model of Glover Park’s Good Guys strip club, complete with three mini stripper stages, a mini bar, and mini patron figurines. Government prosecutors wheeled it in on a table, a curtain covering the set until the evidence was admitted. Then, the government called to the stand Jeffery Dean Gary, a 29-year veteran of the FBI and an expert in the construction of scale models.
Good Guys Trial: Postponed By Infection
Vasile Graure, the man accused of igniting a fire within Glover Park strip club Good Guys last year after being booted from the club, didn’t arrive in court today. “I got a call from the Department of Corrections,” announced Judge Robert Richter to the attorneys present this morning. “Vasile Graure has an infection in his toe.”
Good Guys Trial: Waitresses Testify
Two Good Guys waitresses were called to the stand today in the trial of Romanian citizen Vasile Graure, the man accused of setting the club on fire last November. Valerie Kremer, 29, who left her job at the club in September, was working the night shift at the club on the evening of Nov. 3, 2007. When she arrived, a customer she didn’t recognize asked her for a drink and complimented her on her clothes. “You look Scottish,” she recalls him telling her. She asked where he was from. He told her he was from Romania. Kremer says that one year later, she wouldn’t recognize the man if she saw him again.
