Arguments over revoking bond

Wrobleski contended Pearson posed “a danger to the community,” asserting the two incidents warranted revoking his bond and jailing him pending trial. At the time, the officer had been out on a $200,000 bond since his November 2020 arrest.

Barring revoking the bond, Wrobleski asked that it be “significantly increased” and that the officer be ordered to refrain from alcohol and wear an alcohol monitoring bracelet.

But Clancy contended the 2012 and 2015 cases were thoroughly investigated by detectives and internal affairs officers, and there was nothing there.

“There was no probable cause to believe that (Pearson) had done anything wrong,” Clancy said of the 2015 restaurant incident.

Instead, Clancy said, investigators found Pearson “acted absolutely appropriately under the circumstances,” including telling the other group he was a police officer, showing his badge and holding his gun against his chest and saying, “Stay away.”

In contrast to Wrobleski’s account, Clancy said when a police investigator asked the man who had approached the truck whether Pearson had pointed his handgun at him, the man said he did not.

“Nah man, didn’t point the gun,” he said, according to Clancy.

Officer body camera footage, Clancy said, shows Pearson “remained on scene and cooperated fully with investigators.”

In the 2012 case, Clancy said, both sergeants who stopped Pearson said “unequivocally” that he wasn’t drunk, even as he violated department policy by driving a city car after drinking.

“That’s why they pulled him over, and he was sanctioned for that,” Clancy said. “Neither of these sergeants would suggest for a moment that he was intoxicated.”

“I don’t think anything you’ve heard today, judge, would suggest in any form or fashion that he constitutes a danger to this community,” Clancy concluded, noting that Pearson had abided by all of his bond conditions since his arrest.

Given the last word, Wrobleski disputed Clancy’s contention.

“If this is a bunch of nothing ... then we all need to recalibrate our idea of what criminal justice is,” said the prosecutor, who now works for the Virginia Attorney General’s Office.

In the driving after drinking case, he said, Pearson was not subjected to the same sobriety tests — such as reciting part of the alphabet — that others might have endured. In fact, Wrobleski said, Pearson got additional responsibilities after the incident and was made a sergeant in the department’s gang unit.

For the 2015 restaurant altercation, Wrobleski appeared to disagree with a police detective’s decision not to charge Pearson with brandishing a gun, saying the investigator discounted “four eyewitnesses corroborating that offense.”

“This incident was so egregious that the local prosecutor’s office felt obligated to have one of their attorneys report a police officer for a criminal investigation,” Wrobleski said. “Sometimes a person’s danger to the community is ... inherent in the facts of the case.”

But at the end of the hearing, Spencer allowed Pearson to remain free pending trial, though she did modify his bond conditions. The information she learned at the hearing, she said, caused her “to have some concern about the defendant’s behavior and his consumption of ... alcohol.”

She initially said she would order Pearson to wear an alcohol monitoring bracelet on his ankle. But in a discussion on how that would be paid for, she later amended it to require that he show up at the probation office for weekly, but random alcohol tests.