VFW fire suspect bond set at $25,000 – trial set for April 25

Lesley Deavers

FRONT ROYAL — A secured bond of $25,000 has been set for the Front Royal woman charged in relation to the July 2015 fire that gutted the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post in town.  A trial date of April 25 was also set for 56-year-old Lesley Rose Deavers, a long-time employee of VFW Post 1860.  Deavers has been held without bond at the RSW Regional Jail since her arrest on February 8.

Deavers is facing two felony counts of arson and one embezzlement charge in the case.  The embezzlement is an unclassified charge that carries a 1 to 20-year sentence.  The two arson charges are Class 3 Felonies that each carry a 5 to 20-year sentence.

David Downes represented Deavers during the Monday (Feb. 13) afternoon bond hearing heard before Judge Ronald Napier in Warren County Circuit Court.  Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan Layton represented the Commonwealth, though Commonwealths’ Attorney Brian Madden will be handling the case for state.  Madden is off this week, Layton explained to the court.

In delivering his decision, Napier appeared to accept defense counsel’s argument that Deavers’ family ties to the community are deep – her mother and siblings all live here, Downes said – and that essentially his client has “no place to run.”  Deavers attorney also told the court his client had been a resident at her current home for 12 years and had no previous criminal record.

Layton countered that the arson and embezzlement charges were part of an ongoing “scheme” they allege to the defendant that indicated “a profound breach of trust, and risk to the lives of others.”

Downes acknowledged the prosecution’s theory of the case.  However, he noted that Deavers had remained here over the course of the 18-month investigation, knowing that she may have been at least one suspect targeted by it.  He also questioned the lives put in peril aspect of the commonwealth’s argument against bond.  Downes said at most the Commonwealth’s evidence might put one person on site at the time the fire was set.  But he said evidence also indicated that person apparently left the premises before the fire grew large enough to be recognized in a different part of the building where that person had been.

In addition to a trial date of April 25, Judge Napier set Discovery Motion and Response dates of March 6 for the Commonwealth and March 24 for the defense.

Background

VFW Post 1860, gutted by fire on July 11, 2015. Photo/Chuck Midkiff

Deavers’ February 8 arrest came after a year-and-a-half investigation into the July 11, 2015 fire that left the local Colonel Samuel R. Millar VFW Post 1860 without a headquarters.  The building was a total loss with damages estimated around a half-million dollars.

The investigation also linked Deavers to a break-in at the VFW eight days prior to the fire in which several thousand dollars was found missing; as well as to the suspected embezzlement of as much as $100,000 from the VFW Post over time.

The Front Royal Police press release on Deavers’ arrest cited the involvement of multiple agencies in the investigation, including FRPD, Warren County Department of Fire & Rescue Services, Warren County Sheriff’s Office, Bureau of Alcohol-Tobacco-Firearms and Explosives, Shenandoah County Fire Marshal’s Office, Loudoun County Fire Marshal’s Office and the Forensic Audit Division of the BATFE.

Norma Jean Shaw contributed to this story.