Va. program used to warn kids away from crime

NORFOLK

On a rainy night in 2006, Jade Young and a friend stood watch at a bedroom window as two other friends terrorized and robbed a 90-year-old man.

They tied him up with phone cords and stole his money, liquor, prescription medications and guns. It was only after he broke free and hobbled across the street with his walker that police were notified.

Young, 17 at the time, served 14 months in a juvenile detention center for robbery and statutory burglary. She was treated as an adult and has an adult felony record. The three others involved went to prison.

Young's story was a wake-up call for Commonwealth's Attorney Greg Underwood, who prosecuted the case. Underwood said Young, who e-mailed him in 2008, didn't understand how different her life could be after committing a crime.

"You may have put me behind bars," she wrote to Underwood, "but you made me realize that I need more from life than crime." Her words, Underwood said, "made all the difference in the world."

"She's the reason we come to schools now," Underwood told a class of eighth-graders at Azalea Gardens Middle School on Monday.

Underwood's guest lecture was part of Virginia Rules, a program started by the state attorney general's office and adopted two years ago by the Norfolk Commonwealth's Attorney's Office. This year, through the program, instructors from private and government offices will speak to an estimated 1,300 students.

In Underwood's class of 11, students sat with somber faces as the attorney talked about accomplice liability. He told the students about three teenage girls who were each sentenced to more than 30 years in prison for luring James Robertson Jr. to an East Ocean View parking lot in 2007. There, Robertson was killed after a waiting gang stripped, robbed and beat him.

Students exchanged hushed comments as Underwood described Robertson's death and the fate of the teenagers who aided in the slaying.

"The law says all who participated are culpable," Underwood said. "The three girls went to this school. They were hanging out and made bad decisions."

A hushed gasp came again from a student.

"They didn't make the decision to rob and beat," Underwood said. "But they got charged with the same thing and suffered the same penitentiary consequences."

"So she actually did it?" a student asked about one of the three teenage girls.

"No," Underwood said. "You're just as responsible because you're there from beginning to end. She was part of the process, part of the scheme."

"Wow," the student said.

Underwood also told the students about Young's struggles after getting out of juvenile detention.

"What rights do you lose if you get a felony conviction?" asked prosecutor Charlotte Purkey, who helped with the talk.

"You can't vote," one student said.

"You don't even have that right yet," Purkey told the eighth-graders, "and you'll lose it."

As the class period came to an end, the students wanted to know more about accomplice law.

"If you think about it," one student said, "teens only think about themselves."

"It's so easy to make a bad decision," Underwood told her. "Just try and step back and think about it."

Azalea Gardens Middle School teacher Paula Williams said she was grateful to Underwood for making vague laws come alive through specific examples.

As Underwood explained after the talk, "If we can save one kid from coming through our doors..."

"Then it's one kid saved," Williams added.

Sarah Hutchins, (757) 446-2326, sarah.hutchins@pilotonline.com