Crime & Safety
Gardner Preliminary Hearing Moved up an Hour
Hearing will now start at 11:45 a.m., still no word if hearing will open to the public.
The decision to allow the public into the preliminary hearing in the aggravated sexual battery case involving Michael Gardner rests on the shoulders of Judge Esther Wiggins.
That decision will be made this morning.
Instead of starting at the originally scheduled time of 10:45 a.m., the hearing will now start an hour later at General District Court inside City Hall.
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Gardner, who served as chairman of the Falls Church City Democratic Committee from 2006 to 2007, , according to records from Arlington Circuit Court following an alleged sleepover at his home on June 18. Arlington County Sheriff Chief Deputy Paul Larson said Gardner was released from the Arlington County Detention Center on a $50,000 bond. The alleged victims, 10 and 9-years-old, identified Gardner as the person who sexually assaulted them in the basement of his Falls Church home during an alleged sleepover for Gardner’s daughter, according to court records. City of Falls Church Police charged Gardner on June 22.
Find out what's happening in Falls Churchwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
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