The 17-year-old victim of a January assault on Elden Street, who pleaded guilty to carrying a machete in a separate incident in May, is scheduled to enter a six-month locked-treatment program at the end of July.
"I'm not sentencing you to six months, I'm sentencing you to enter and complete the program. It's not an easy program," Judge Teena D. Grodner said to the 17-year-old during a hearing Tuesday, July 12 in Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
"Do you want to be part of that?" Grodner asked.
"Yes," he said.
The 17-year-old pleaded guilty on June 22 to carrying a concealed weapon and a felony count of destruction of property for stealing items from a construction van, including a stereo, air compressor and generator.
<bt>HE BARELY SURVIVED</b> an altercation on Elden Street on Jan. 14, 2005, which resulted in him being air-lifted to a hospital. He spent nearly three weeks in a near-coma after the assault, according to his attorneys and police.
The Beta program, a six-month locked treatment program offered by the county, treats older juvenile chronic offenders, according to the Fairfax County Web site. "Interventions are structured around such issues as anger management, social skills training, decision making skills, moral reasoning, and setting boundaries and limits," according to the site. The program provides judges an alternative to committing youth to the Department of Juvenile Justice.
The 17-year-old will be required to report back to Grodner monthly so she can monitor his progress and determine whether he should continue the program. Juveniles who don't succeed in the program can be sent directly into the state correction system.
"The goal is that you succeed, but you will be the one that has to control that," Grodner said.
<1b>— Ken Moore