Arent Fox Partner Wants Pretrial Release Without Money Strings

And the arraignment watch for Arent Fox Partner Joseph Price continues. Price is scheduled to appear today at 2:30 p.m. before Superior Court Judge Frederick Weisberg, the judge who will preside over the case. Hearings scheduled for 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. were postponed.

Price, charged with obstructing the 2006 murder investigation of Robert Wone, first appeared Thursday afternoon before Magistrate Judge Diana Harris Epps. A government prosecutor asked for a $100,000 bond.

But the justification was not announced in open court. Epps met at the bench with assistant U.S. attorney Glenn Kirschner and Price's lawyer, Bernard Grimm, a Cozen O'Connor partner. Price did not say a word at the hearing.

Judges in the District rarely grant bail bonds, and Grimm was unable to find a bondsman in the District, Maryland, and Virginia who is licensed to write bonds in the District. The setting of a bond, Grimm said, was tantamount to pre-trial detention.

Grimm will argue today that Price should be released on his own recognizance based on his ties to the community and his longtime employment at Arent Fox, where Price is an intellectual property specialist in the litigation department.

Price, who appeared in court briefly around 1:15 p.m. today, was wearing an orange jail jumpsuit -- a different look than the dark suit he was sporting Thursday in court. He was smiling in court. The throng of supporters that gathered in court Thursday was noticeably thinner today. Wone's relatives are also back in court today.

Price's domestic partner, Victor Zaborsky, is also in custody and expected to be arraigned this afternoon. A third person, Dylan Ward, was arrested in Florida and expected in the District next week.