Spectator's Journal: Holly Goes Lightly
York, Byron
SPECTATOR'S JOUR NAL by Byron York ast year I wrote about an assault that L took place in my apartment building in the northwest section of Washington, D.C. (See "A Negative Campaigner," TAS,...
...A couple who lived next door came outside to ask the woman what the problem was, offering to let her use their phone to call the roommate...
...Wilson said she had never before been the target of such an insult...
...She alleged that one of her victims—the woman who lived in the apartment she bashed in—had used a racial slur during the incident...
...Wilson, he said, was upset when she couldn't get into the apartment where she had been staying...
...Maybe she had just fallen into an uncontrollable rage...
...This time the judge bought the story and gave him six more weeks to wander around searching for an identification card...
...In any case, the judge told Wilson, "you need some help...
...The judge shot back: "Does that make this better or worse...
...As for Wilson, she told the judge she is now living in Boston, where she is "looking for work as a policy adviser...
...But the real cause of the problem, Wilson continued, was racism...
...Wilson was ordered to make payments of $200 a month...
...After the victim used the racial slurwe were never told what it was —Ms...
...In November, I heard that she had pleadedguilty to one count of simple assault and one count of destruction of property...
...Her name was Holly Wilson, and she did not return my phone calls to her office at campaign headquarters...
...This is what happened, according to court documents and neighbors who witnessed the incident...
...Before the Wilson case came up, the courtroom was filled with a succession of dark-skinned black men, scruffy-looking defendants in blue D.C...
...I wanted to hear her side of the story, because nobody in the building could figure out what had made her so angry...
...The attacker screamed, and about that tine police arrived...
...I have never been assaulted by such violence, anger, and blind hatred...
...attorney...
...As she broke through the heavy wooden door, the woman inside sprayed her with mace...
...At that point, the apartment building's resident manager—a white woman—arrived to find out what was going on...
...And despite her accusations of racism, no one heard any racial slurs or references during the incident...
...One drug defendant tried to finesse the fact that undercover cops had watched as he pulled packets of PCP from a car and sold them to teenagers on a Washington street...
...Amid all the perps and their lawyers sat Holly Wilson and her male companion, waiting for her case to be called...
...the probation would end when the bills were fully paid...
...I've always gotten along with people," she said...
...Then Holly Wilson rose to tell her story...
...As the officers questioned her — I had also arrived and was listening by this time — BYRON YORK is an investigative writer for TAS...
...her friend read the Book Review...
...She apologized for "playing a role in all this...
...Then Wilson's lawyer rose...
...We were wrong...
...He sentenced Wilson to unsupervised probation and ordered her to pay $2,400 in restitution: $1,000 to the building owner for the destruction of the door and $1,400 to the resident manager for her medical expenses...
...The woman Wilson accused of racism had recently returned from doing humanitarian work in Africa and Haiti...
...She was a very light-skinned, very attractive black woman with dark-brown wavy hair, wearing a red blazer, black mini-skirt, black stockings, Holly Goes Lightly Holly Wilson (Harvard '91, Clinton '96) gets off easy...
...See "A Negative Campaigner," TAS, July 1996...
...In the scuffle, the man managed to push her out a doorway and into a stairwell...
...For the moment, she said, she is a consultant for the Boston city schools, advising them on how to win government grants...
...When we all came back, there was a delay over some paperwork, but finally the judge announced his decision...
...Her friend was immaculately turned out in a dark suit and a fashionable deep blue shirt...
...The defendant and her lawyer sat down at the table while the judge asked the prosecutor if he wanted to introduce a victim-impact statement...
...As the lowlifes shuffled through court, Holly Wilson read the Times magazine...
...Then she told the cops they'd better be careful: she worked for the Clinton/Gore campaign, she said, and her fiancé was an assistant U.S...
...k The American Spectator • May 1997 59...
...They made quite a glamorous couple...
...I attended the session, held in a basement courtroom of the District of Columbia Superior Court...
...I have never been in a fight in my entire life...
...When the resident manager walked up, Wilson said, "I ran up to her, and out of frustration at how I had been treated, I took it out on her...
...Then it was time for the judge to send Wilson on her way...
...Then the woman picked up a fire extinguisher and used it as a battering ram to break through the couple's door (that was the pounding sound that woke me up...
...Her sentencing was set for March 17, 1997...
...At that, Wilson put on her camel-colored overcoat and headed outside...
...So low were her expectations of the District of Columbia justice system that she simply assumed Wilson would never face any sanctions at all...
...The judge didn't buy the story, and the man went back to jail to await trial...
...She told the judge she was surprised at her behavior...
...she referred to the couple as "white motherf---ers" and complained that they were racists...
...Then the black woman attacked the white woman's male friend...
...Apparently sensing that he wasn't making much headway, the lawyer sat down...
...During one break, they joined Wilson's lawyer in a discussion of vacationing in Italy...
...She still faces a lawsuit from the resident manager...
...The judge said he wanted to think about the case over lunch...
...My wife was happy to hear that somepunishment—any punishment—had been meted out in the case...
...Why don't you go f--- yourself, you white racist c---," she told the white woman who had made the offer...
...Jail jumpsuits...
...Does this lady have such little frustration-tolerance," the judge replied, "that she turns into a violent maniac when something inconveniences her...
...he looked like a cross between David Justice and a young Harry Belafonte...
...Despite his tough words of the earlier session, he went easy on her...
...Undaunted, the lawyer tried another course, saying Wilson's violence was the result of her anger over being sprayed with mace...
...Another man, already on probation for several other crimes, tried to explain why he had skipped out on court-ordered drug treatment...
...She installed new locks in her apartment, she said, afraid Wilson will strike again...
...anything with his picture on it would suffice...
...I decided to write about the incident when I learned that the woman had indeed gone to Harvard and did indeed work for the Clinton/Gore campaign...
...The prosecutor called my building's resident manager to the stand...
...The lawyer changed course again...
...Several weeks later he went again, but they asked for identification, which he didn't have...
...He went once, his lawyer said, but got there after the center had closed for the day...
...Even though prosecutors pursued the case and gathered information from several witnesses, most of the people in the building believed nothing would ever happen to Wilson...
...58 May 1997 • The American Spectator and high heels...
...In return, she smashed the heavy glass door that separated the stairs from the hallway, and the couple retreated into their apartment...
...The story started early in the morning of May 2, when my wife and I were awakened by pounding that seemed to shake the entire building...
...They had brought a Sunday New York Times to help them pass the time...
...His client was a fine person, he told the judge—she was valedictorian of her high school class and a graduate of Harvard College...
...Not much, but at least it was something...
...The suspect lunged at the manager and punched her squarely in the face, breaking her nose and spattering blood around the hallway already littered with broken glass, splintered wood, and blood from the earlier fight...
...A young woman who lived in one of the apartments below mine had arrived home late...
...After a while the clerk announced United States v. Holly Wilson...
...I heard my nose break," she told the judge...
...The prosecutor repeated the point that not one of more than a dozen witnesses had heard any racial slur, and arguments ended...
...Maybe the car wasn't his car, the man's lawyer suggested, and maybe the PCP—which the cops had chemically tested on the scene—wasn't really PCP at all...
...As a matter of fact, no one who was involved in the altercation had ever seen Holly Wilson before...
...The woman, who was black, became enraged...
...Perhaps she was drunk, he speculated, or perhaps she had smoked pot that had been laced with PCP (after all, he has seen a lot of that sort of thing...
...She was too important to be messed with...
...Wilson just snapped...
...For some reason her roommate did not let her in, so she began yelling and pounding on the door...
...Now his lawyer, with a perfectly straight face, was telling the judge that the defendant had spent the last six weeks trying unsuccessfully to get some sort of ID so he could enter treatment (it didn't even have to be a driver's license...
...The police took her off to Second District headquarters...
...He said he found Wilson's actions inexplicable, since she had "lived an exemplary life in all other respects...
...Plus she had gone to Harvard...
...Each had his own lame story to tell...
...It's a nice fit, since her father was once superintendent of the school system...
...She's lucky she was only maced," the judge said, noting that Wilson was sprayed after she had broken down the door...
Vol. 30 • May 1997 • No. 5
