KLMNO

METRO

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2021. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/LOCAL EZ RE K B

JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON

The columnist says

goodbye to an old friend

after selling his 1968

Datsun roadster. B3

EDUCATION

As enrollment falls

and colleges close, a

surprising number of new

ones are opening. B2

OBITUARIES

Gladys M. Stern, 104, who

led Georgetown Day for 21

years, was a driving force

48 ° 51 ° 48 ° 41 ° behind its high school. B4

8 a.m. Noon 4 p.m. 8 p.m.

High today at

approx. 2 p.m.

53

°

Precip: 55%

Wind: WNW

10-20 mph

BY JUSTIN GEORGE

Hundreds of drivers lined up in their cars

Sunday morning to get a $50 grocery gift card

from a Fort Washington church, illustrating

the economic impact the coronavirus pan-

demic has had on families.

Bumper to bumper, cars snaked into the

parking lot of Ebenezer African Methodist

Episcopal (AME) Church to get one of

1,000 cards being handed out to help with the

Thanksgiving holiday. The church has held

community outreach events before the Christ-

mas and Thanksgiving holidays for nearly

40 years, but since the pandemic began, it has

been hosting such events much more fre-

quently — before every major holiday —

because so many people are facing financial

struggles after their workplaces closed or

their jobs were put on hold.

“The need is obviously much greater and

you can tell by the traffic,” said Denise Ross, a

longtime volunteer of the holiday events who

passed out gift cards on Sunday while wearing

a mask and sweatshirt with “Jesus Saves” on

it. “People are just very grateful. Not that they

weren’t before, but in some cases you can see

the look of just gratitude, just thankfulness.”

More than a half-million people in the

United States found jobs in October, pushing

the unemployment rate down by 0.2 percent-

age points to 4.6 percent, according to the U.S.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. But it remains

more than 1 percent higher than in February

2020, the month before the pandemic was

declared in the United States.

Ebenezer AME officials said the church has

given away more than $600,000 in gift cards

SEE GIVEAWAY ON B4

Charity is still in demand

A Md. church’s $50 grocery cards draw bumper-to-bumper drivers as pandemic challenges endure

BY TOM JACKMAN

On the last day of Andrea Cin-

cotta’s life, the Arlington librarian

was scheduled to have lunch with

a friend at a favorite Italian restau-

rant. She confirmed the appoint-

ment with an email, but never

showed up.

That night, she had made plans

with her live-in fiance to see a

movie. She didn’t keep that date

either. Around 1:30 a.m., Cincot-

ta’s fiance told police he had dis-

covered her body tucked in the

bedroom closet of their Colonial

Village apartment on North

Rhodes Street. She was 52.

That was in August 1998. Cin-

cotta’s slaying remained unsolved

for the next 23 years, even as her

adult son Kevin Cincotta contin-

ued to push Arlington police to

find her killer.

Now, Arlington authorities

claim they have done that. After

empaneling a special grand jury,

prosecutors obtained indictments

charging Andrea Cincotta’s fiance

with hiring a man to kill her, and

both men have been arrested and

charged with aggravated murder,

formerly a crime punishable by

death before Virginia abolished

capital punishment this year.

James Christopher Johnson,

59, who had lived with Cincotta for

seven years, was arrested Tuesday

morning. He is accused of enlist-

ing Bobby Joe Leonard, 53, to kill

Cincotta, who had been strangled.

Johnson’s lawyer, Manuel Lei-

va, strongly defended his client

Thursday. “The assertion that Mr.

Johnson hired Leonard to kill Ms.

Cincotta is false,” Leiva said. He

noted that Leonard “has long been

a suspect in Ms. Cincotta’s death

and was known by law enforce-

ment officials as a very violent

individual.... Mr. Johnson is in-

nocent.”

Johnson said in a 2002 inter-

view with The Washington Post

that he had been intensely investi-

gated by Arlington police, includ-

ing an interrogation session in

SEE SLAYING ON B3

23 years after slaying, fiance indicted

Arlington authorities

allege he hired man t o

kill w oman he lived with

BY VANESSA G. SÁNCHEZ

While the District is set to ease

its indoor masking requirement

on Monday — impacting office

buildings, retail stores, gyms and

more — colleges and universities

across the city say their own mask

policies are staying in place.

Since returning to full-scale

in-person learning in August,

D.C.’s major universities have re-

quired students and employees to

wear masks in most indoor set-

tings, and all but Catholic Univer-

sity have required coronavirus

vaccinations. Now, as the holi-

days approach, university offi-

cials and public health experts

say mask-wearing will remain es-

sential in protecting against virus

surges.

“You probably don’t want to

open this up for more transmis-

sion by telling people you can

take off your masks in the class-

room,” said Lynn R. Goldman,

dean of the Milken Institute

School of Public Health at George

Washington University. “We’re

not ready yet to say that it’s going

to be safe for our community.”

On Friday, GWU announced

that its mask mandate will stay in

effect for all university-owned or

university-operated facilities un-

til further notice.

As of Saturday, D.C. met the

CDC’s definition for “substantial”

transmission of the coronavirus.

Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said

Tuesday that children, adoles-

cents and young adults in the

District had experienced the

highest number of cases during

the pandemic’s third wave, which

started in June, although few

have needed hospitalization.

The impact of the District’s

shift on masking rules was not

immediately clear for university

campuses and buildings. Bows-

er’s office said indoor masking in

D.C. will continue on public

transport and inside schools, li-

braries, child-care facilities, con-

gregated facilities and D.C. gov-

SEE MASKS ON B3

C olleges stay the course on mask rules

Many are playing it safe

as Bowser relaxes covid

mandates across D.C.

BY ELLIE SILVERMAN

charlottesville — When the

court recessed for lunch, Mat-

thew Heimbach, a neo-Nazi de-

fendant in a civil lawsuit, went to

the nearby Charlottesville Down-

town Mall for pizza. Someone

took notice.

Soon after, a Twitter account

called “cvillefashwatch,” which

was created last month to stand

as a “community defense ac-

count to identify racists,” posted,

“Matt Heimbach and his lawyer

are headed to the DTM right

now. Be careful. Businesses

please don’t server these fas-

cists!”

Charlottesville has been the

stage of a high-profile civil trial

of more than two dozen white

supremacists and hate groups,

whom plaintiffs accuse of con-

spiring to commit racially moti-

vated violence during the deadly

2017 rally. The jurors are deliber-

ating in a federal courthouse

within walking distance to

p laces overrun that weekend by

racism and attacks.

The compact nature of the city

has resulted in uncomfortable

sightings of white supremacists

during this unusual trial, now

entering its fifth week.

During breaks in court pro-

ceedings, some of the defendants

would head to the Downtown

Mall, a popular stretch of restau-

rants and shops among leafy

trees where locals and visitors

alike grab lunch or catch up with

friends.

Heimbach and his lawyer had

walked into Christian’s Pizza,

where Nancy Alvarado, a 20-

year-old worker who was not

living in Charlottesville during

the rally, stood behind the coun-

ter. She did not recognize them,

SEE CHARLOTTESVILLE ON B6

Charlottesville civil trial unfolds blocks from deadly 2017 rally

Federal courthouse’s

proximity has put some

city residents o n edge

CARLOS BERNATE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

A memorial for Heather Heyer, who was killed when a neo-Nazi

plowed his car through a crowd of anti-racism protesters in 2017.

MATT MCCLAIN/THE WASHINGTON POST

Denise Ross, center, directs traffic outside the Ebenezer AME Church as grocery gift cards worth $50 each are handed out to motorists in

Fort Washington. One thousand cards were distributed ahead of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.

BY JESSICA CONTRERA

Nearly every year for the past

decade, a prominent anti-traf-

ficking organization has handed

out a “report card” on the United

States, assigning each state a

grade on its laws to protect vic-

tims of child sex trafficking. The

goal: Motivate legislators who do

not want bad grades to pass bills

that ensure children sold for sex

are not treated as criminals but as

victims in need of services. With

each new report, more laws were

passed. States watched their

“grades” improve from D’s and C’s

to A’s and B’s.

But this November, when

Shared Hope International con-

vened in Washington to release

its new round of grades, it an-

nounced that the rubric it had

been using to score each state had

changed. Rather than focus on

the basic laws needed to protect

victims, the report delved into the

nuanced issues of prevention,

training, victim identification,

law enforcement strategy and

more.

This time, 40 states were hand-

ed F’s.

“It was time for a fresh look at

where we are,” said Christine

Raino, who led the research ef-

fort. “It used to be that any kind of

protections from criminalization

felt like a win. Now that a lot more

states have those protections, we

are really looking at the details.”

Now, as the 45-page report is

circulating among lawmakers,

prosecutors, judges, advocates

and survivors across the country,

leaders in the anti-trafficking

movement are re-examining

what counts as success — and just

how much work remains to be

done.

The nation’s capital, which has

long prided itself on a victim-

centered approach, scored an F.

So did Virginia. Maryland ranked

among the worst states for child

victims in the country, in 44th

place.

“The dismal score that we got

as a state is a call to action,” said

Maryland state Sen. Susan C. Lee

(D-Montgomery). “We clearly

need more housing resources and

better mechanisms to connect

victims with services, and we

SEE REPORT ON B4

Report:

Md. fails

child sex

victims

‘ A CALL TO ACTION,’

STATE SENATOR SAYS

Anti-trafficking group

flags laws in 4 0 states

The District and Virginia do not

report coronavirus cases and

deaths on Saturday and Sunday.

Therefore, virus case totals for the

region are printed Tuesday through

Saturday.