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The Answer Is: Former Jeopardy Contestant Charged with Attacking Virginia Delegate's Wife

Former game shows contestant charged with attacking state delegate's wife.

A Virginia woman who was once a contestant on "Jeopardy" and "Who Wants to Be a Millionairre?" is facing charges that she broke into a Virginia state delegate's home and attacked his wife.

Claire Kennedy Ogilvie, 35, is charged with breaking into House Minority Leader David Toscano’s Charlottesville home and attacking his wife, according to The Roanoke Times. Nancy Tramontin was treated and released from Martha Jefferson Hospital, the paper reported.

As a 26-year-old law student in 2005, the paper reported, Ogilvie won $50,000 for correctly answering a question about the number of Americans behind bars.

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Police have declined to state a motive. Toscano said in a news release that his wife had been repeatedly hit in the head by a woman the couple knew but hadn’t seen in about a year. Police arrested Ogilvie at her Park Street apartment, about a mile from Toscano’s home.

Word of the case sent shockwaves from Charlottesville to capital cities off Interstate 64 and inside the Beltway.

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“She was an excellent student, and I was glad to be able to serve as her lifeline on ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,’ ” Michael Abramowicz, a George Washington University Law School professor who helped Ogilvie answer the $50,000 question, told the paper.

He declined to comment further.

Ogilvie’s online resume also alludes to two appearances on “Jeopardy!” for the game show’s college championship series in May 1998.

The 20-year-old Yale sophomore’s knowledge of poetry, the technical aspects of tennis courts and the geography of New Zealand led to thousands of dollars in winnings, the Times reported.

The Washington Post reported she was teaching near Charlottesville and has been suspended because of the charges.


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