Category: Fairfax county
Former Virginia Democrat leader murders his wife before committing suicide amid divorce
Local police are investigating a murder-suicide involving a Democrat who was once second in command in Virginia.
Shortly after midnight on Thursday, Fairfax County police responded to a 911 call at a home in Annandale, Virginia, finding an adult male and female deceased. The victims were later identified by police as Democrat former Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, 47, and his wife, Cerina, 49, who were reportedly going through a divorce.
His campaign was heavily eclipsed by sexual assault allegations.
The couple’s son and daughter were at home at the time of the murder-suicide but were unharmed.
“Shortly after midnight, officers responded to the 8100 block of Guinevere drive in Annandale, where they located an adult male and an adult female deceased inside of a residence,” Captain Chris Cosgriff said in a video statement on the scene.
“Preliminarily, it appears that the adult male shot the adult female before shooting himself in a domestic-related incident.”
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Fairfax served as Virginia’s lieutenant governor from 2018 to 2022 under then-Gov. Ralph Northam (D). Fairfax launched his own bid for governor in 2021, but his campaign was heavily eclipsed by sexual assault allegations from two women.
Fairfax vehemently denied the allegations and maintained that their relations were consensual. Despite his denials, Fairfax finished in fourth place in the Democratic primary.
This is a developing story.
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Democrat ex-lawmaker who heckled Trump convicted in COVID fraud scheme
A leftist former lawmaker was sentenced last month after being convicted of fraudulently obtaining a COVID-19 relief loan.
Ibraheem Samirah, a former Democratic Virginia state delegate, made headlines in 2019 for interrupting President Donald Trump’s Jamestown speech, holding up a sign that read, “Deport hate” and “reunite my family.”
‘The defendant was stealing federal tax dollars at the same time he was deciding how to spend Virginia tax dollars.’
Samirah, 34, was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay $88,000 in restitution after he pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, according to a Tuesday report from the Washington Post.
Prosecutors argued that the former lawmaker received an $83,000 Paycheck Protection Program loan in May 2020 for his dental practice in Fairfax County. He applied in August 2021 to have the loan forgiven, which would require the PPP funds to have been used for payroll, rent, or mortgage payments.
Samirah claimed that the loan would be used to pay four workers at his practice. However, court documents revealed that his business had no payroll employees. Additionally, it had no active financial account to disburse payroll funds until a few days before applying for the loan.
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
Samirah allegedly fabricated payroll and tax records to secure the loan. The funds were distributed through bank accounts belonging to the supposed employees and then transferred into Samirah’s own account, according to prosecutors.
“The defendant was stealing federal tax dollars at the same time he was deciding how to spend Virginia tax dollars,” prosecutors wrote.
Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
Samirah told the Post that he had a “mistaken understanding of the PPP loan process,” which he claimed was “weaponized by Donald Trump’s Justice Department.”
He told the news outlet that he intended to use the cash to hire workers to market his business; however, on the loan application, he claimed that the funds would go to existing employees. He explained that he changed his mind about hiring new workers after realizing the pandemic would be prolonged. Instead, he spent the money on dental equipment and office furnishings, which were not authorized uses of the funds.
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