<bt>Robert J. Salerno wasn't sentenced to a year in jail — but almost. Instead, he received 330 days behind bars for assault and battery in a Fair Lakes home.
Salerno, 22, is of 10710 Green Mountain Circle in Columbia, Md. And in a Dec. 11 affidavit for a search warrant to obtain DNA evidence from him, Fairfax County police robbery Det. J.G. Sterling detailed the case against him.
On Nov. 1, police responded to a home on Fair Crest Court after receiving a report of a burglary of an occupied dwelling. Sterling wrote that Salerno knew the 26-year-old female who lived there so, when he appeared at her door, she allowed him and a friend of his to come in and use her telephone.
Once inside, however, the friend — referred to as Suspect 2, since he got away — attacked the victim, grabbed her around the neck and demanded that she open her safe. Sterling wrote that Salerno told her to give the other man all her money.
But she resisted, screaming that she had an alarm system and the police were coming. Suspect 2 fled and, when police did arrive, they found Salerno hiding in the upstairs bedroom. Sterling arrested Salerno, charging him with attempted robbery.
The grand jury later indicted him and, on April 15 in Circuit Court, he pleaded guilty to an amended charge of assault and battery, a misdemeanor. He returned for sentencing, May 24, before Judge Arthur Vierreg.
At that time, the judge accepted the terms of a plea agreement made between Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Dennis Fitzpatrick and Salerno's defense attorney. Vierreg sentenced Salerno to 365 days in jail; he then suspended 35 days, leaving Salerno with 330 days to serve.
<tgl> — BONNIE HOBBS