On Friday, Vox reported that a Virginia man who had been found guilty of burglaries, assaults, and sexual assault perpetrated against Georgetown students had been sentenced to 26 years in prison. Below is a timeline of his trial and a full accounting of how much time he will serve for each charge on which he was found guilty.

Vox has also reexamined all the crimes that have been attributed to the criminal or criminals known as the “Georgetown Cuddler,” as both the Washington Post and Saxaspeak have reported that the man, Todd Matthew Thomas, was one of the criminals who is sometimes referred to by that name. And our review of all of those crimes makes Vox wary of declaring that police have caught up with any of the criminals who perpetrated “Cuddler” crimes, if what the Post says about his crimes is true. More on that after the jump, but first, the trial.

According to documents from the D.C. Superior Court, prosecution filed the first charge against Todd M. Thomas—burglary one (meaning burglary in the first degree)—on August 23, 2008, at which time he was held “preventatively” without bond. Three days later, the court filed an order for Thomas’s conditional release with GPS monitoring.

On May 13, 2009, prosecution filed seven additional charges against Thomas:

• Four counts of burglary one
• Three counts of simple assault
• One count of attempted burglary two.

Thomas’ arraignment for these charges was scheduled for two days later, but on May 15, Thomas failed to appear in court. His attorney, Reginald Williamson, was present and reported that Thomas was in Baltimore. Judge Gregory Jackson issued a bench warrant without bond for Thomas’ arrest, which stood for three days until he appeared in court on May 18 to plead not guilty to all charges and Jackson canceled the warrant.

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After the demise of the free newspaper program early this year, student leaders have been pushing to bring the Washington Post back to campus, according to Will Cousino (SFS ‘12) of Interhall. Cousino, GUSA Vice President Jason Kluger (MSB ‘11) and Corp CFO Phil Goodman (SFS ‘10), are still deciding between a new offer from the Washington Post, and older offers from USA Today’s Collegiate Readership program and the New York Times.

The details of the Washington Post deal may change, according to Cousino, but as of earlier this week the Post was willing to provide 200 papers a day for a cost of $1200.

As Cousino said, it’s “pretty much the same offer as the Times. Difference being that the Washington Post can also deliver the New York Times (albeit at a high cost… more than $1 a copy).”

According to Kluger, the number of copies of the Post the Times that this deal would include has not yet been nailed down.

In addition to which papers to include, Kluger emphasized that distribution methods are a critical factor in the decision. The Post delivers their own papers, whereas USA Today hires a Georgetown student to put out the papers every morning.

“Also, there’s the question of physically what to put the papers in,” Kluger said. “The [containers] we had before, [which] you had to use your GOCard to get into, were part of the Collegiate Readership program. We have to see if we can still use them.”

The next step for the free newspaper movement is narrowing the three offers down to one, definitive deal. Kluger is eager to incorporate student input in the ultimate decision.

“Whatever our final choice comes down to, unless student feedback comes down really hard on one side or the other, we have a survey set up to get out in an email to the student body,” Kluger said.

The e-mail will be sent as soon as Cousino, Kluger, and Goodman narrow down their options, a process which could still take a few weeks.

NSO staple Mike Birbiglia (COL ‘00) is in the midst of a nationwide tour, and in anticipation of his Saturday night performance at Warner Theater in D.C. he had a chat with Washington Post readers earlier this week.

While many of the questions were about his comedic work, quite a few Washingtonians used the chat as a chance to discuss Birbiglia’s time at Georgetown.

One reader claimed to be the runner-up in the “Funniest Person at Georgetown” contest the year Birbiglia won, another asked about his “theory of bisexuality,” which he developed while taking a women’s studies class at Georgetown,  and someone else admitted her “friend” had a huge crush on him when they were in college together.

The best part of the chat, though, comes when a reader asks him for help controlling his fellow Hoyas’ urinary habits:

Washington, D.C.: Why are you so funny?

Also, can you get these Georgetown students to stop peeing on my front lawn?

Mike Birbiglia: I can’t vouch for those people. I never peed in anyone’s lawn while at GU, though I did once ride in a shopping cart.

…

Georgetown: We pee on everyone’s lawns.

Mike Birbiglia: Sounds like you do. Yes.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators are getting closer to pinpointing the cause of last week’s Metro crash.  They discovered that WMATA had replaced a crucial component of the signaling component, the “Wee-Z bond” which maintains a safe distance between trains, and it malfunctioned.  There have already been a couple lawsuits filed against Metro, including one by Johnnie Cochran’s law firm.  WMATA General Manager John Catoe announced that the system will keep operating in manual mode until outside experts have a chance to examine the signaling system, which could as long as a year.

In some rare “good on you, WMATA” news, the embattled transit agency just re-launched its NextBus service this Wednesday.  NextBus allows you to see when the next bus will be arriving for any route and can be used from the internet or a cell phone.  The service was launched as a pilot program about two years ago for 32 routes, but it was only 80 percent accurate.  The improved version covers all 335 bus routes.

Harriette Walters, the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue employee who masterminded the largest embezzlement in city’s history, was sentenced to 17 and half years in prison.  It was revealed in 2007 that over the course of two decades Walters’ had defrauded the D.C. government to the tune of $48.1 million through issuing tax refunds to fake businesses.

Speaking of OTR, this year they mistakenly sent tax refunds to people who actually owe the District taxes. One resident who got the unmerited refund was D.C. Councilmember David Catania’s (I—At Large) parter, Brian.

After the jump: the Washington Post wipes out, medicinal marijuana makes progress, legal fireworks fun and more.

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