By Linda Cicoira — A felony charge of abduction and two counts of brandishing a firearm will not be prosecuted against former Northampton County Supervisor Granville Hogg who was accused of blocking a delivery van’s path in September 2018.
Trespassing charges brought by Hogg were also not put on trial for the FedEx contractor and his worker who were his alleged victims.
Accomack Commonwealth’s Attorney Spencer Morgan was tasked with prosecuting Hogg. He said both sides were “de-escalating” when it came time for the cases to be heard Tuesday.
The former supervisor was required to complete a gun safety course and apologize to Kyle Miller of Chesapeake, Va., and his employee, Anthony Sivels. Morgan said Hogg did so at the conclusion of the hearing.
Miller previously said he thought he was encountering a man who wanted to learn about a delivery while Hogg told authorities he thought he had found another thief on his property. The incident happened near Cherrystone.
Within days of the incident, Miller told a reporter that Hogg had a gun and started yelling. The contractor said he objected to Hogg’s “insinuation that we were doing something wrong. He was acting like a vigilante.” Miller said he asked Hogg to put the gun away. But Hogg wouldn’t. “He took both of the IDs into his hand,” Miller said, contrary to Hogg’s claims that he never got close enough to the vehicle to see them.
“I have had several issues in the past,” Hogg wrote to the Eastern Shore Post last year in an email. “Stolen vehicles, stolen equipment, break-ins, trespassing on oyster grounds, removal of oysters, theft of a house full of antiques. Three or four of these were foiled by me. I either had them on camera, been alerted by a security service that there was an intruder, or observed the persons in the act. The theft of the antiques has not been solved,” Hogg wrote.
Miller said he did not know why the GPS directed them to Secretairy Road when they were looking for Oyster Cape Road, which they later found out was on the other side of Lankford Highway. His deliveries were backed up because of the threat of the hurricane and because the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel had several closures around that time. Miller said Hogg continued to hold on to the gun while they waited between five to 10 minutes for police to arrive.
