Holiday charity leader jailed
Man accused of ripping off Christmas nonprofit faces drug charge. Travis justices of peace keep busy on century’s last sequential date.
The president of the Christmas Bureau of Austin and Travis County was back in jail Wednesday — on criminal charges unrelated to allegations of financial improprieties involving the nonprofit that has supplied Christmas presents to needy families.
Shon Washington was booked into the Travis County Jail on charges of failure to identify and possession of a controlled substance after a 10:30 a.m. traffic stop on Berkman Drive in East Austin, police spokeswoman Veneza Bremner said.
Officers stopped Washington after he ran a red light, and he declined to provide his identity until police prepared to use his fingerprints to learn his name, Bremner said.
Officers searched Washington’s car and found methamphetamines, police said.
Washington is already under investigation, accused in a lawsuit of illegally soliciting charitable donations and misappropriating those funds.
Washington and the Christmas Bureau became the subject of local headlines last month. For more than two decades, the nonprofit has helped the Austin Police Department’s Operation Blue Santa, but Blue Santa officials became alarmed after they could not reach Washington.
Public records show Washington has a criminal history that includes burglary and felony forgery. He was charged with misdemeanor theft by check in 2011, according to court records, and in August was charged with felony drug charges.
This month, the Texas attorney general sued the Christmas Bureau, claiming it defrauded donors, and a Travis County judge ordered the organization to close.
ByAndrea Ball
Kyle Fox and Christine Widmont’s whirlwind love story begins at a bar in Naperville, Ill.
She was a bartender. He was a bouncer. He asked her out. Three months later, Fox spread flowers around the house and proposed to Widmont on bended knee with “My Best Friend” by Tim McGraw playing in the background. She, still stinking of cigarettes and booze from work, said yes.
On Wednesday, two years after their betrothal, the pair were married in the offices of Precinct 5 Justice of the Peace. It was Dec. 12, 2012, or 12/12/12.
Some now-newlyweds might have seen 12/12/12 as way to mark their unique love. For Fox and Widmont, both 24, it just happened to be a day they both had off from work. They were, however, delighted when someone pointed out their special wedding date.
“It’s a perfect date,” Widmont said. “I’ll never forget it; he’ll never forget it.”
All across the country, number-loving couples headed to chapels and courthouses to tie the knot on the century’s last sequential date. Several Travis County justices of the peace said they definitely saw an uptick in weddings on what would ordinarily be a slow day for nuptials. Precinct 1 Justice of the Peace Yvonne Williams planned to hold six weddings on a day she might only officiate one.
“People have a thing about numbers,” she said.
Fox, now a pest control technician, and Widmont, and optometrist’s assistant, decided to get married by a justice of the peace because most of their friends and family live in Chicago. For simplicity’s sake, they decided to make it legal in Travis County