The judge buried his head in his hands as the mother and stepfather of disgraced Charlottesville television meteorologist Josh Fitzpatrick stood before him Thursday. Despite their travel from Ohio and vow to keep the accused "sextortionist" at home and away from the internet, the judge said the prospect of additional charges was the key driver of his decision against granting bail.
"Please don’t take that as any sort of disrespect," Judge Matthew Quatrara told the parents. "I have a lot of empathy for you."
The mother of the onetime 29News weatherman, Nokey Foster, had just testified that she would obtain an internet-disabled flip phone for her son and notify the court if he violated any bail provisions while living at her rural residence in Gallipolis, Ohio. But that wasn’t enough for the judge.
"How am I going to ensure his compliance?" asked Quatrara, holding a hand to his forehead.
"The parents are saying they’re going to ensure it," replied Fitzpatrick’s court-appointed attorney, Jessica Phillips.
That’s when Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Lawton Tufts spoke up.
"Other people have already come forward," the prosecutor said. "There are other potential victims."
The court record shows two additional charges filed Tuesday. They follow two initial charges revealed last week: felony sexual extortion and misdemeanor filming of a nude person.
The new charges are a pair of misdemeanor counts of disseminating nude images. The criminal complaint from Albemarle County police detective Michael Schneider asserts that they stem from a secretly made video of sex with a man that was texted last fall to two unknown individuals — along with salacious comments.
"I didn’t want him to f–k me, but he insisted," Fitzpatrick wrote to one person to whom he allegedly texted the video in October. "I didn’t want him to hurt me. I’m so confused."
Schneider alleges that Fitzpatrick sent that same video to another person in November along with this message: "HS senior with big arched c–k getting off in my deep butthole!"
While Fitzpatrick hasn’t yet been granted an opportunity to assert a plea, a conversation with a magistrate suggests a potential excuse.
"He says that these images were sent to a number he was blocked from," wrote magistrate David Pennington. "Says it was ‘fantasy’ and ‘role-playing.’"
Schneider contends that a search warrant uncovered additional concerning materials.
"There are several other videos of currently unidentified males on Mr. Fitzpatrick’s Apple iPhone," Schneider wrote.
From late 2017 to early March of this year, Fitzpatrick served as a weatherman for Charlottesville-based television station WVIR, branded as 29News. The station has declined a Daily Progress request for additional details.
Fitzpatrick’s LinkedIn account indicates that was he was also working for a forecasting operation called WeatherNation, but that firm has not responded to inquiries from The Daily Progress.
Fitzpatrick was arrested April 22 in Gallia County, Ohio. Court documents and statements made at Thursday’s hearing indicate that as investigators began closing in on him, Fitzpatrick left the Charlottesville area for Ohio, began seeing a therapist, was hospitalized and attempted suicide.
Throughout this discussion, Fitzpatrick watched on a video connection from the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail where he has been held since May 1. Gazing directly at the camera with no obvious emotion, he did not speak during the half-hour hearing.
The initial charges assert that Fitzpatrick secretly made a sex tape of a consensual encounter and then threatened to put it on the internet if the other man in the video did not reward him with additional sexual liaisons. Tufts called the evidence against Fitzpatrick "extremely strong" and said he anticipated additional charges.
The judge set June 5 for Fitzpatrick’s next hearing and said he would reconsider bail once the commonwealth indicates that its investigation has completed.
"There’s going to be a time when the commonwealth has all it’s going to have," said Quatrara. "Right now, we just don’t know."
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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