In this community service episode of 8@4 we're taking our eight segments and highlighting people, orgs and businesses across the Richmond region having an impact on those facing hardship. Presented by Massey Cancer Center from the Virginia Wayside Furniture studio.
A Culpeper man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for abducting an employee of a Chesterfield County business last year and sexually assaulting the woman after forcing her onto a vacant school bus parked on the lot outside.
The assailant, Leroy Kenneth Johnson Sr., 64, threatened the victim with a T-shaped metal tool during the Jan. 7, 2021, random attack in the 8900 block of Jefferson Davis Highway.
While displaying the weapon, Johnson ordered the woman out of the building where she worked. “She cried ... begging him to not hurt her, telling him that her two boys had no one else to care for them,” Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Gabriela Phillingane said in a summary of facts.
Following a sentencing hearing Tuesday in Chesterfield Circuit Court, Judge David E. Johnson sentenced Leroy Johnson to 30 years in prison with no time suspended on his earlier guilty pleas to abduction and aggravated sexual battery.
The punishment was a significant upward departure from discretionary state sentencing guidelines, which for Johnson was initially calculated at a range of between three years and three months to 10 years and three months. However, the high end of the guidelines was adjusted upwards to 20 years and 6 months, based an assessment of Johnson’s risk of recidivism among other sex offenders.
In his written reason for departing from the guidelines, the judge noted the defendant’s criminal history, his lack of remorse and "indifference to his lawlessness.”
Phillingane said Johnson has 12 felony convictions.
Johnson originally was charged with rape, abduction with intent to defile, strangulation causing injury and possession of a firearm by a felon. But a plea agreement was crafted that reduced the rape charge to aggravated sexual battery and the abduction to defile count to abduction of a person. He pleaded no contest to the reduced charges Feb. 25. The strangulation and firearm charges were withdrawn as part of the agreement.
According to Phillingane’s summary of facts, Chesterfield police responded to the business where the woman worked for a report of a sexual assault and attempted robbery.
Due to a language barrier, the victim’s initial interview with police was done through a friend. The victim reported that while she was at work, a man in an older model Ford truck came to the business and knocked on the door. The man asked “if the boss was around.”
Speaking little English, the victim gave the man a business card with the company’s hours and contact information, and he appeared to leave. But minutes later, when the victim walked outside to the mailbox, the man reappeared from behind the business and followed her.
The man asked for money and became angry when the victim replied she didn’t have any to give him. The man then displayed the weapon and ordered her to come outside the building.
The man walked the victim to his truck and ordered her to get in on the driver’s side. But she resisted, not getting all the way inside. Still holding the weapon, the man then ordered her to get in between some buses that were parked on the south side of the lot.
The man opened the door of a yellow school bus and ordered her inside. He dragged her onto the bus and, once inside, removed her clothes. The victim “closed her eyes praying that he would spare her life,” Philligane said.
The man fondled the victim before forcing himself on top of her to commit the sexual assault. Following the attack, the man told the victim to get dressed and asked her again for money.
“She tried to get the man into the back office, where he knew there were cameras, in an attempt to capture his image,” Philligane said. He followed her inside and she pretended to help him look for money.
When nothing was found, she grabbed her purse and showed him she only had $10 and some foreign currency in her wallet. The man ultimately left and she locked herself inside. The woman called her friend, who came to the business before calling the police.
A description of the suspect and his vehicle was broadcast to patrol units, and Johnson matched the description. After police set up surveillance, Johnson was arrested, and detectives located several T-shaped tools in his vehicle.
Investigators obtained a DNA sample from Johnson, and state forensic scientists compared that with a DNA mixture profile they developed from sperm traces recovered from the victim.
They identified Johnson as a major contributor to the profile, noting the probability of randomly selecting an unrelated person with a DNA profile matching the major contributor was greater than 1 in 7.2 billion people, or the population of the world.
09-29-1941 (cutline): Gas shortage holds no terrors for pair here. Gas curfews, "gasless" Sundays and threats of curtailing fuel for automobiles are just so many words to two Richmonders. As other citizens worry how to get fuel for the "horsless carriages." Harry J. Donati (left), and Joseph G. Robben drive leisurely down Twenty-fifth Street for an afternoon ride. Motorists, amazed and amused at Dobbins appearance on the street, give the vehicle of a former day a wide berth, Mr.Donati reported.
04-15-1988: Carriage parade to Bloemndaal. Strawberry Hills Weekend.
04-13-1985 (cutline): Carriages parade around fairground track before Strawberry Hill Races start.
02-20-1942 (cutline): The Buggy Comes Back--These vehicles which have been stored away in barns and other farm buildings since the beginning of the century, have come back into their own. Miss Julia Mason examines a brougham (top) which the Smith-Moore Body Company here found and brought to Richmond for a customer. Other vehicles are shown at bottom.
04-09-1973 (cutline): Out for a Ride. The Early Virginia Vehicular Museum held a dinner yesterday at 909 W. Franklin. Part of the deal was a ride around the neighborhood in a carriage. This load of children was riding down Harrison Street in front of the Art School Building of Virginia Commonwealth University.
08-12-1963 (cutline): Prized old hearse is exhibited by collector Steven Suggs
In July 1943, gas shortages prompted the Retailers for Victory campaign to stage Richmond’s first “gasless parade” to promote the sale of war stamps, which would fund construction of the aircraft carrier Shangri-La. The event featured all manner of transportation not fueled by gas: Gov. Colgate Darden rode in an ox-driven cart, and a goat-powered wagon (center right) carried Mayor Gordon Ambler along the parade route from Monroe Park to Capitol Square.
Before the horse powered engine, there was the horse drawn carriage.
Even after the automobile, the carriage came in handy to many Richmonders.
Enjoy a look back at carriages in Richmond over the years from our archive.
09-29-1941 (cutline): Gas shortage holds no terrors for pair here. Gas curfews, "gasless" Sundays and threats of curtailing fuel for automobiles are just so many words to two Richmonders. As other citizens worry how to get fuel for the "horsless carriages." Harry J. Donati (left), and Joseph G. Robben drive leisurely down Twenty-fifth Street for an afternoon ride. Motorists, amazed and amused at Dobbins appearance on the street, give the vehicle of a former day a wide berth, Mr.Donati reported.
04-15-1988: Carriage parade to Bloemndaal. Strawberry Hills Weekend.
04-13-1985 (cutline): Carriages parade around fairground track before Strawberry Hill Races start.
02-20-1942 (cutline): The Buggy Comes Back--These vehicles which have been stored away in barns and other farm buildings since the beginning of the century, have come back into their own. Miss Julia Mason examines a brougham (top) which the Smith-Moore Body Company here found and brought to Richmond for a customer. Other vehicles are shown at bottom.
04-09-1973 (cutline): Out for a Ride. The Early Virginia Vehicular Museum held a dinner yesterday at 909 W. Franklin. Part of the deal was a ride around the neighborhood in a carriage. This load of children was riding down Harrison Street in front of the Art School Building of Virginia Commonwealth University.
08-12-1963 (cutline): Prized old hearse is exhibited by collector Steven Suggs
In July 1943, gas shortages prompted the Retailers for Victory campaign to stage Richmond’s first “gasless parade” to promote the sale of war stamps, which would fund construction of the aircraft carrier Shangri-La. The event featured all manner of transportation not fueled by gas: Gov. Colgate Darden rode in an ox-driven cart, and a goat-powered wagon (center right) carried Mayor Gordon Ambler along the parade route from Monroe Park to Capitol Square.
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Richmond police said an arrest has been made in a fatal stabbing on Nutmeg Court.
“We’re trying to help insurers do what they want to do, and we’re trying to make sure policyholders get what they paid for,” says Bryan Wachter, a principal insurance market examiner. "It's not a gotcha."
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