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The Arlington County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, which prosecutes the crime, said last week that a U.S. Army soldier was arrested in February 2024 on suspicion of stealing a Pride flag from the home of a lesbian couple over a five-day period between September 2023 and 2023. It has been confirmed that the charges against the two have been dropped. January 2024.

Arlington Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Degni Tufti said the charges against the two men, Specialist Matthew Henshaw, 21, and Private First Class Joseph DiGregorio, 23, are based on the recently initiated “Security and Restorative Justice.” He was reportedly rejected because he successfully completed a program called “The Center of Excellence.” conference program.

Under the program, the two men will undergo six months of counseling sessions with facilitators associated with the program before meeting with Michelle Logan and Jenna Barnett, the two women who allegedly stole the Pride flag. did.

In a statement released to the press, Logan and Barnett said they appeared to express remorse for the actions of two soldiers who repeatedly toppled and stole their pride flags. . After their face-to-face conversations with Henshaw and Gregorio, the two women said the men also seemed to understand the issues and concerns of the LGBTQ community and the need to end anti-LGBTQ bias and discrimination. .

“While we believed they were potentially amenable to change, we also felt that simply putting the offense on record was not necessarily enough,” Logan told online news publication ARL Now told. “We wanted them to educate themselves and understand why stealing a pride flag is not just a felony, it’s a hate crime against two people who had to go through it,” she said. told ARL Now.

At the time of their arrest, Henshaw and DiGregorio were members of the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Regiment, also known as the Old Guard, an elite ceremonial unit that participates in burials at Arlington National Cemetery.

Degni-Tafti told news outlets such as the Washington Blade that the purpose of the Restorative Justice Conference program is to provide an alternative to incarceration if people charged with a crime voluntarily participate in the program and crime victims agree. He said it’s about providing options. to participate in the program.

“What you really need to do is think about what you did to the victim, explain to the victim face-to-face frequently, and promise that you will do things differently and never do it again. ” Degni-Tafti told the Blade.

Participation in the program also requires a person charged with a crime to admit to having committed the crime, Degni Takhti said.

She said the program would prefer, but not require, people charged with a crime to be between 16 and 26 years old to enter the program. She said these are people charged with certain violent crimes, such as intimate partner violence and sexual assault. Assault and murder are ineligible for participation in the program.

Arlington police also said that at the time of their arrest, the two soldiers were stationed at Army Joint Base Meyer-Henderson Hall in Arlington. One of the entrances to the base is located about two blocks from the 200 block of South Courthouse Road, where police say there are two women’s homes and a Pride flag. It is said that this is the place where he was.

According to court records, Henshaw, who was 20 at the time of his arrest, was charged with three counts of unlawful entry (bias motive) and three counts of petit theft for flag thefts that police said occurred on September 16 and September 30. was indicted on the matter. DiGregorio was charged with one count of petty larceny for the Jan. 21 flag theft, records show.

Police announced that the perpetrator of the flag theft on September 16th was captured on the woman’s doorbell camera. The couple also publicized their plight on social media, raising public awareness of flag theft and providing information that helped police identify the two soldiers arrested on February 2.

The single charge against DiGregorio was dropped on Sept. 9, and each charge against Henshaw was dismissed on Dec. 23, records show.

To show support and solidarity with Logan and Barnett, who have come out as a lesbian couple, at least six residents of nearby homes have removed Pride flags from their homes after learning the couple’s flags had been repeatedly stolen. It was listed on.