B4 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, APRIL 1 , 2022
matched the image listed for
Handy on the Progressive Anti-
Abortion Uprising website said
Wednesday that she was released
after her arrest.
“Thank u for the prayers & kind
words,” she wrote. “I encourage
people to not forget the victims of
abortion violence. They most im-
portantly deserve our tears &
prayers.”
If found guilty, the nine defen-
dants could each face 11 years in
prison, as well as three years of
supervised release and up to a
$350,000 fine.Spencer S. Hsu, Fredrick Kunkle,
Monika Mathur, Justin Wm. Moyer,
Razzan Nakhlawi, Alice Crites and
Clarence Williams contributed to this
report.the indictment.
Meanwhile, two others — Wil-
liam Goodman, 52, of the Bronx
and Heather Idoni, 61, of Linden,
Mich. — stationed themselves in
front of the employee entrance. A
patient who had arrived for her
appointment attempted to enter
the clinic using both doors but was
blocked by the group, the indict-
ment says.
Darnel continued document-
ing the events on Facebook Live,
prosecutors said, at one point say-
ing the “rescuers are doing their
job. They’re not allowing women
to enter the abortion clinic.”
Handy appears to be an active
member of the Progressive Anti-
Abortion Uprising group, accord-
ing to its website. A tweet from an
account with a profile picture thatof Arlington, c reated a Facebook
event called “No one dies today,”
prosecutors said, adding in the
description “Starting soon! Tune
in!”
Once the facility opened, Dar-
nel started a Facebook Live video,
and the group “forcefully pushed
through the clinic door into the
clinic’s waiting room,” the indict-
ment says. As he charged in, Jay
Smith, 32, of Freeport, N.Y., caused
a nurse “to stumble and sprain her
ankle,” prosecutors said.
As members of the group
blocked the doors with chairs,
Paulette Harlow, 73, of Kingston,
Mass., allegedly unloaded a duffel
bag filled with a chain and rope.
She and four others then sat in the
chairs and “chained and roped
themselves together,” according tohibiting abortions after 15 weeks.
The group of nine protesters in
D.C. began conspiring through
calls and text messages Oct. 15,
2020, prosecutors said. They were
scattered in various states, includ-
ing Virginia, New York, Massachu-
setts, Michigan and New Jersey,
court records show, and agreed to
meet in D.C. to execute their plan.
At some point after Oct. 15,
Handy, 28, called the clinic to
make an appointment for 9 a.m.
on Oct. 22 under the alias “Hazel
Jenkins,” the indictment says.
Handy arrived minutes before
the clinic opened and approached
a medical specialist, identifying
herself as Jenkins, the indictment
says.
As the rest of the group waited
for the clinic to open, Darnel, 40,messages left with numbers asso-
ciated with the apartment were
not returned.
The indictment comes as more
states pass legislation restricting
abortion access. In the six months
after Texas passed a ban on abor-
tions past the six-week mark, law-
makers in more than a dozen
states have proposed similar bills.
On March 23, Idaho Gov. Brad
Little (R) signed a bill into law
modeled after the one in Texas.
Governors in at least two more
states signed bills Wednesday pro-Justice Department. Prosecutors
did not provide the name of the
clinic in the indictment.
Court records do not indicate
whether the nine defendants have
attorneys.
None of the defendants could
be reached for comment Thurs-
day. No one answered the door at
the Sixth Street rowhouse base-
ment apartment where Handy
stayed, or responded to a note left
there requesting comment. Phone
CHARGES FROM B1
9 indicted in b lockade
of a bortion clinic i n 2020
152 text messages — many of
them graphic in nature — the
coach exchanged with the two
teens. The text messages showed
how Shipley had flattered and
encouraged them, making the
girls feel special, before sexually
pursuing them at the end of their
senior years, the criminal com-
plaint said.
As news of Shipley’s arrest
spread, former rowers created a
private Facebook group, where
they recalled experiences with
the coach that they hadn’t per-
ceived as abusive at the time. An
18-year-old — who had graduated
in 2021 — said she believed that
Shipley had been grooming her.
Another 18-year-old — also a 2021
graduate — recalled how Shipley,
after learning she had attempted
suicide, crassly asked how she
had tried to do so.
Many of Whitman’s former
rowers have been waiting to see if
Shipley agrees to a plea deal, and,
if so, what his punishment will
be. Now they will wait again.letes, including a 2018 rumor that
he was having a sexual relation-
ship with a girl on the team. Both
times Shipley managed to hold
on to his job — largely because of
the program’s success, former
rowers and parents said.
The parent board later apolo-
gized for rehiring Shipley after
complaints about his toxic behav-
ior.
“While it is easy to point fin-
gers with 20/20 hindsight, it is
important to remember that the
individual responsible here is
Kirk Shipley,” board president
Dave Charlton said in November.
Shipley was arrested in August
after two former rowers — one
was 17 when she graduated in
2013, the other was 18 when she
graduated in 2018 — came for-
ward to report their abuse to
police. The allegations sent shock
waves through Bethesda, an af-
fluent Maryland suburb near
D.C.
The 14-page criminal com-
plaint against Shipley includedShipley’s first court appearance
since he was arrested on Aug. 24
and released. Shipley, who at-
tended the hearing virtually, kept
his camera turned off.
Burrell asked that the judge set
a new date for Shipley to either
accept or reject the government’s
original offer. The new deadline
is May 2.
Shipley, a three-time All-Met
Coach of the Year, led Whitman’s
winning crew program for nearly
two decades, sending girls on to
row at Yale, Brown, MIT and
other elite universities. The club
team was parent-run and parent-
funded. Shipley was paid a base
salary of $34,500, plus $10,000
for summer coaching, in addition
to the $101,656 he earned from
Montgomery County for teach-
ing.
Twice the volunteer parent
board launched investigations
into Shipley’s behavior after com-
plaints from parents and ath-SHIPLEY FROM B1Judge sets new deadline for plea dealLAURA CHASE DE FORMIGNYKirk Shipley has until May 2 to accept or reject a deal in which he would plead guilty to first-degree
sexual abuse of a secondary education student and possession of a sexual performance by a minor.
BY RACHEL WEINERBefore leaving for a weekend in
Ocean City, Md., in the summer of
2020, Man Nguyen gave a friend
the keys to his Bowie home and
his car. He later recalled telling
Ibrahim Bouaichi to stay out of
trouble. Nguyen knew his friend
was facing sexual assault c harges.
It was Nguyen, a bondsman, who
paid the bail to get Bouaichi out
of the Alexandria jail.
Nguyen also knew that Boua-
ichi was angry at his accuser, an
ex-girlfriend named Karla
Dominguez, and that he had been
kicked out of his parents’ home
after becoming violent.
Yet Nguyen left his two loaded
guns, his handcuffs and his badge
in a duffel bag in a closet —
“hiding in plain sight,” as he
acknowledged during a January
bench trial in Alexandria Circuit
Court. By the time Nguyen re-
turned from the beach two days
later, Bouaichi, driving the
bondsman’s Nissan Altima, had
tracked down Dominguez and
killed her with the bondsman’s
gun. Before police could arrest
him, Bouaichi killed himself with
the same gun, in the same car.
“My only bad judgment was to
trust this individual,” Nguyen ar-
gued in court in January, defend-
ing himself against a charge of
contempt after firing his attorney
midway through trial. He was
charged with contempt of court
for willingly allowing Bouaichi to
violate the terms of his bond.
As a condition of his release,
Bouaichi was supposed to remain
at his parents’ home in Maryland
unless he had a court appearance
or meeting with his attorneys.
Nguyen’s defense was that his
violations were “innocent” be-
cause he never read the paper-
work that came with bonds he
signed.
He called Dominguez’s killing
“tragic,” while admitting he had
forgotten her name. He had not
forgotten, however, that between
killing Dominguez and commit-
ting suicide Bouaichi damaged
the Nissan.
“I’m also a victim,” he had told
the judge. “Someone crashed my
car.”
On Thursday, Judge Charles
Sharp sentenced Nguyen to a year
in jail on the contempt charge,
with all but a month suspended if
he remains on good behavior.
“You’re not being tried here for
murder,” he said, but for ignoring
“serious malfeasance ... almost
on a daily basis.”
The conviction caps off a case
that was made complicated by
the pandemic’s effects on the
criminal justice system and ques-
tions about how Bouaichi was
being tracked after he was re-
leased from jail on the assault
charges.
Bouaichi was first arrested in
October 2019 after Dominguez
accused him of a violent sexual
assault. He was supposed to go to
trial in March. Then the pandem-
ic arrived, and his attorneys suc-
cessfully argued that the evidence
was not strong enough for Boua-
ichi to be held in jail indefinitely
while jury trials were suspended.
Bouaichi had no convictions
on his record, but he had been
arrested several times and was
the subject of a protective order
from a 2017 domestic violence
incident.
Bouaichi’s sister called Nguy-
en, a friend for over a decade. The
bondsman posted the $25,000
surety. A couple of months later,
he gave Bouaichi a job at his side
business running a mall kiosk in
Arundel Mills.
“There was a conflict of inter-
est,” said defense attorney Sean
Sherlock, a new attorney Nguyenhad representing him at sentenc-
ing. Nguyen, Sherlock said, was
making “an attempt, however
misguided, to help Bouaichi.”
Bouaichi was supposed to
leave his home only for court-
related matters. But he was not
put on electronic monitoring,
and Alexandria had a very small
staff devoted to monitoring peo-
ple on pretrial release. In May,
Bouaichi was arrested in Green-
belt after an altercation with po-
lice in a Wendy’s drive-through.
He was accused of hitting a police
car and charged with reckless
driving, driving under the influ-
ence, assault, harming a police
animal and other assorted charg-
es.
He was initially held without
bond by a commissioner, having
been diagnosed after his arrest
with “altered mental status, alco-
hol abuse and suspected sub-
stance abuse.” But at a bond
hearing days later, prosecutors
did not oppose his release. There
was no indication they wereaware of the Alexandria case, and
authorities in Maryland never
notified Alexandria of the arrest.
Nguyen claimed he was also
unaware Bouaichi had been ar-
rested again.
But he acknowledged knowing
in June t hat Bouaichi got in a
fight with his father and became
homeless. He testified that he
would pick his friend up for work
at a tent in the woods nearby.
When he went on vacation, he
asked Bouaichi to watch his dog.
Before leaving, he moved his gun
bag from his car to a bathroom
closet and threw a towel over it,
he testified.
He couldn’t reach Bouaichi
that weekend but did not call
police until he realized the guns
and car were missing.
“Obviously I violated the bond
conditions, but I wasn’t aware,”
Nguyen said at trial. “I just sign it,
I don’t look at it — I just swear,
and I never pay any attention.”
Dominguez was with her new
boyfriend when she was killed; a
police officer testified at trial that
he tried and failed to save her life.
The mother of Dominguez’s new
boyfriend, Yumeira Gonzalez,said that Dominguez came from
Venezuela and had no family in
the United States.
“She was a wonderful person,”
Gonzalez said. “I really knew her
for a few months only, but it was
enough to see how wonderful she
was.”
The tragedy became national
news, seized on by those who
warned against the release of
inmates from jails during the
pandemic. Inmate populations in
local jails across the country
dropped 30 percent between Jan-
uary and March of 2020, accord-
ing to the Bureau of Justice Statis-
tics.
Nguyen’s former boss, Dave
Gambale, testified that bonds-
men are “not responsible for the
behavior” of the people they help
release from jail. “We’re not with
them 24/7,” he said. He conceded
that bondsmen who subcontract
with him are required to “main-
tain professionalism” and “know
the conditions of the bond.”
The Virginia Bail Association,
which argues that bondsmen are
a superior free-market alterna-
tive to pretrial officers, did not
return a request for comment onNguyen’s case.
“The outcome of this trial es-
tablished that when officers of
the court sign their names to
official documents, the terms of
those official documents matter,”
Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan
Porter said. “It’s not just a mind-
less exercise.”
Pretrial services in Alexandria
were subsequently moved out of
the sheriff’s office. But there are
still only four pretrial and proba-
tion officers for the city, which
people who have worked in the
criminal justice system say makes
constant monitoring of everyone
on release impossible.
Meghan Guevara of the Pretri-
al Justice Institute, a nonprofit
group that advocates for fewer
people to be held in jail before
trial, said that t he pandemic “cre-
ated an unprecedented situation”
for the criminal justice system
and that such tragic outcomes
were exceedingly rare.
“To say that we should let
thousands and thousands of peo-
ple stay in jail with a high chance
of contracting covid because of
these handful of high-profile
c ases, it just doesn’t make sense,”
she said. “These extreme and
tragic circumstances often relate
back to intimate partner violence,
and it’s a reminder that as a
society we don’t have an answer
to that problem.”
Nguyen’s license as a bonds-
man was suspended after
Dominguez’s death. The magis-
trate who reported him for violat-
ing his oath, Elizabeth Fuller, has
filed a federal lawsuit saying she
was illegally fired for discussing
the case with the Alexandria
Times.
“I am not sorry that I did the
right thing, and that I know I did
the right thing,” she told the
newspaper at the time. “I was the
only person in a position to speak
up for this woman.”Katie Mettler and Tom Jackman
contributed to this report.THE REGION
Bondsman sentenced in case involving friend who killed ex
ALEXANDRIA COMMONWEALTH’S ATTORNEY’S OFFICE
Karla Dominguez was with her new boyfriend when she was killed
by Bouaichi. She accused him of a violent sexual assault in 2019.He let man he bailed out
stay at h is house with
access to c ar and gunsALEXANDRIA POLICE
Ibrahim Bouaichi was facing
assault charges and out on bail
when he fatally shot an ex-
girlfriend and then himself
with his bondsman’s gun.BY PAUL DUGGANAn employee of the National
Security Agency was indicted
Tuesday for u sing a personal
email account to illegally send
classified information to a wom-
an in private industry, federal
authorities said.
The indictment, unsealed
Thursday in U.S. District Court in
Baltimore, alleges that Mark Un-
kenholz, 60, who worked in an
NSA office that engages with
private industry, sent 13 unau-
thorized emails to the woman
from February 2018 to June 2020,
each containing “information re-
lating to national defense” that
was classified either “secret” or
“top secret/sensitive compart-
mented information.”
Unkenholz, of Hanover in
Anne Arundel County, was arrest-
ed Thursday, according to the
U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland.He was charged with 13 counts
each of willful transmission of
national defense information
and willful retention of national
defense information. Federal
court records did not indicate
whether Unkenholz is represent-
ed by a lawyer.
The nature of the material that
he allegedly emailed is not dis-
closed in the indictment, and it is
unclear whether the woman,
identified in court documentsonly as “R.F.,” has been charged in
the case. In announcing the in-
dictment, the U.S. attorney’s of-
fice provided only a bare-bones
account of what allegedly oc-
curred. Marcia Murphy, a spokes-
woman for the office, said author-
ities had no additional comment.
The unidentified woman had
top secret/sensitive compart-
mented information clearance
while working for a private com-
pany from about April 2016 toabout June 2019, the indictment
says, but from about July 2019 to
about January 2021, while work-
ing for a different company, she
“did not hold a security clear-
ance.”
Even when she had top secret/
sensitive compartmented infor-
mation clearance, authorities
said, she was not authorized to
receive the information that Un-
kenholz allegedly sent to her on
her company email addresses.Appearing Thursday before
Chief Magistrate Judge Beth
Gesner, Unkenholz pleaded not
guilty to all the charges and was
ordered released after promising
to show up for future court pro-
ceedings.
The judge ruled that he is
financially eligible for represen-
tation by the federal public de-
fender’s office, which said he has
not yet been assigned an attor-
ney.MARYLAND
NSA worker charged with disclosing classified n ational defense information