ACCOMAC
Tonya S. Bundick is scheduled to go to trial Monday in Virginia Beach on two of the charges against her stemming from a string of arsons on the Eastern Shore.
At a hearing in Accomack County Circuit Court on Thursday, a judge denied her attorney’s request to limit evidence and background testimony to the one fire for which she’ll go to trial and exclude details on more than 70 arsons that were set in the county from November 2012 through last April.
A grand jury last month indicted Bundick, 40, on 62 additional arson counts, but a trial date has not been set for those.
Bundick and fiancé Charles R. Smith III, 38, were arrested when their minivan was stopped near a fire in Melfa.
From the woods, two state troopers had been conducting surveillance on a house when they saw a minivan stop in the road, the troopers testified last year. They said they watched a person run from the vehicle and set the building on fire.
On Thursday, Bundick’s attorney, Allan Zaleski, argued if officers take the stand, they shouldn’t be allowed to testify about why they were in the woods. The jury should be left in the dark on the broader scope of the case because, he argued, Bundick’s trial will only address her original two charges: arson and conspiracy to commit arson in connection with the Melfa fire.
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