Over seven months after the alleged assault on then-Student Council Presidential Candidate Daisy Lundy, the Federal Bureau of Investigations continues to investigate the incident as a potential civil rights violation with at least one individual testifying before a federal grand jury.
An unknown assailant allegedly attacked Lundy at about 2 a.m. last Feb. 26 in Poe Alley, directly behind the West side of the Lawn, and issued a racial epithet in regard to her candidacy for Council president. Monetary rewards amounting to $22,000 have been offered in the ongoing effort to catch the assailant.
The attack took place after polls had closed in the first day of a two-day run-off election for president between Lundy and opponent Ed Hallen.
After learning of the incident, Council closed the election polls, and Lundy was declared the winner by the Council Elections Committee after Hallen dropped out of the race Mar. 9.
Lawrence Barry, chief division counsel for the Richmond division of the FBI, shed some light onto the investigation of the alleged assault.
Barry said the FBI became involved in the investigation, which he classified as "ongoing," around Feb. 26 -- the day the alleged assault occurred. The FBI would not comment on any specifics of the investigation or how near it may or may not be to completion.
"It's impossible to predict how long an investigation will take," he said.
The FBI currently has one agent assigned to the case -- Charlottesville-based agent Jim Lamb. Barry said the FBI has been working in conjunction with the University Police Department since the investigation began and characterized the case as a "joint-investigation."
University Police Capt. Michael Coleman deferred any questions concerning the alleged assault to the FBI.
"The assault that was reported the morning of Feb. 26 is being worked by the FBI; you'll have to address them with any questions," Coleman said.
Barry said the FBI opened the case as a "potential civil rights violation" and have been investigating it as such, while he said the University Police Department would investigate the incident as an assault.
"The assault is the underlying act," he said.
The FBI employs the term "civil rights violation" as opposed to the generic term -- "hate crime." When someone threatens or harms an individual based on his or her race, religion or national origin, the crime constitutes a civil rights violation of which there are two main types -- assaults and excessive force by police officers, according to Barry.
For a criminal act to fall under the federal civil rights violation statutes, it must be committed while a victim is engaged in a specific, protected activity, such as attending a public university, "which in this case Ms. Lundy was," Barry said.
The FBI looks at upward of 3,000 civil rights violations a year -- the vast majority of which are closed without prosecution.
Barry said that "3 to 5 percent of all civil rights cases investigated in the country result in prosecution," adding that typically a case will go to court when the investigation has been completed.
After the FBI concludes an investigation, they make a report to FBI headquarters and the Department of Justice. The decision rests with the DOJ whether they will or will not prosecute.
When the FBI initiates a civil rights violation case it generally is announced to the public, and the FBI will acknowledge when the investigation is closed, Barry said.
At least one person with information pertaining to the case has been called to testify before a federal grand jury in Charlottesville.
2003 graduate Ryan McCarthy, former chair of the Minority Rights Coalition and an active member of Lundy's campaign, said he appeared before a federal grand jury early this summer to give an official testimony for the investigation.
A grand jury is a means by which the federal government can present evidence to an impartial body on the record, with the end goal of gathering a sufficient body of evidence to issue an indictment against a suspect, according to legal advisors.
Evidence often includes testimony from multiple individuals with information pertinent to the incident under investigation.
"What I did was provide background information," McCarthy said, adding that he did not have a clear sense of the status of the investigation.
The FBI has been "somewhat secretive about the direction of the investigation," he said. "There was not much discussion of a suspect."
McCarthy also said he was interviewed by Lamb on more than one occasion.
"I was in contact with [Lamb] on several occasions," he said, adding that Lamb's questions were two-fold: asking both for background information about the student election process, as well as for specific details of what McCarthy observed on the night of Feb. 26. McCarthy was present on the Lawn at the time.
"The attack was obviously related in some sense to the election," he said.
Lamb also was interested in the racial climate at the University at the time, given that the FBI is pursuing the case as an alleged hate crime, he added.
"I don't think race started to factor in until after the attack," McCarthy said. The election was "more about the insider versus the outsider, though in retrospect race may have had something to do with it."
Daisy Lundy declined to comment for this story.
--Staff reporters contributed to this article
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