Three college students, all Charlottesville natives, appear headed for a dismissal of their assault and battery charges after participating in an autumn altercation that allegedly left a James Madison University student briefly unconscious.
Police said the trio conspired to lure 18-year-old Avi Shreves to an apartment where they punched and kicked him. All three recently received deferred dispositions.
A deferred disposition means that college students Kathleen Carson Davies, Edward Randolph Parrish and Charles Whitlow Parrish, the latter of whom are brothers, will see their cases dropped later this year — as long as they stay out of further trouble.
According to the investigating officer’s account, the Nov. 24 incident was a slug-filled ambush.
The two brothers, however, have described it as a mere shoving match.
"I have viewed photos of Avi’s injuries sent to me on November 24 and November 26, and the injuries shown are not consistent with only shoving involved," investigating officer Dominique Essex wrote in his complaint.
Essex expressed particular concern about the way Shreves wound up in the apartment of Davies, a student at Piedmont Virginia Community College. Shreves was allegedly hanging out with two female friends on the night of Nov. 24 when Davies allegedly texted one of those friends on Snapchat. Davies allegedly urged one of the women to visit her at Grandmarc at the Corner, a large apartment complex facing 15th Street Northwest, and to bring Shreves.
As Shreves held the apartment door open for his friends to enter, he told investigators, a man’s hand suddenly yanked him inside. Another man then sprang from hiding, he said, and the two men proceeded to beat him so severely that he briefly lost consciousness.
"I knew they were going to beat Avi up," Davies allegedly later texted the young woman who unwittingly led her friend into the situation.
The trio was arrested in late November and each charged with misdemeanor assault and battery, but the investigating officer attempted to get them charged with the more serious crime of abduction conspiracy, a felony. The court record doesn’t indicate why the Charlottesville police officer was unsuccessful in securing the more serious charge.
Shreves told Essex that he regained consciousness while on the apartment floor and getting kicked in the ribs by Charles Parrish, a University of Virginia student who goes by Whit, and by his older brother Edward, a student at the University of South Carolina.
"The injuries sustained by Avi included bruising to the face and the outer portion of his upper back including the rib cage," wrote Essex.
All three suspects turned themselves in to police on Nov. 30, six days after the incident.
However, that wasn’t the end of the matter. The next day, Davies paid a visit to the magistrate’s office and swore out a warrant against the wounded man. Davies alleged unwanted groping at Ellie’s Country Club, an Elliewood Avenue bar, formerly the site of the Biltmore Grill and popular with students.
"He hugged me and then proceeded to run his hand down my back in a creepy way and grabbed my butt," Davies attested in her handwritten complaint. That sworn statement pointed to Nov. 23, the day before the alleged ambush, and resulted in the arrest of Shreves.
But when the sexual battery charge against Shreves came to court on March 31, prosecutor Will Tanner moved to drop it and focus on the Grandmarc attack. The Parrish brothers pleaded no contest to assault and battery and got their deferral approved that same day.
While Edward Parrish was ordered to pay $99 in court costs, his brother Whit was ordered to pay $4,034, most of which appears to be restitution for Shreves’ medical expenses. Davies also pleaded no contest to assault and battery and got her deferral approved in late April.
None of the trio had any prior criminal record, and Tanner said that all parties were consulted on the case’s outcome, which he said included a provision for some volunteer work.
"The victim was supportive of a resolution that involved restitution, community service, and the convictions being entered if the defendants were noncompliant or not of good behavior," Tanner told The Daily Progress via text message.
Each of the three who participated in the beating, none of whose attorney commented to The Daily Progress, must return to Charlottesville General District Court on Sept. 26 and convince a judge that they remain deserving of seeing their charges dropped.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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