Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 24, 1990 TAG: 9003242483
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: By NEAL THOMPSON NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Phillip Allen Shephard, 20, was convicted in Montgomery County Circuit Court of rape, attempted sodomy and entering a home with intent to commit rape.
The maximum total sentence Shephard could have received was life plus 30 years.
Shephard opted for a jury trial after turning down an offer from Commonwealth's Attorney Phil Keith for a plea agreement that would have sent him to prison for 25 years. "The gamble was worth it," Shephard's attorney, Keith Neely, said after the two-day trial.
At the end of the trial, Neely asked Circuit Judge Kenneth Devore for the fifth time to drop the charges and declare a mistrial. Devore again overruled him.
Shephard is scheduled to be officially sentenced by Devore on April 2, after a background report is completed.
Until then, he will be held without bond in the Montgomery County Jail. Devore rejected Neely's request that Shephard be released on $100,000 bond.
Shephard took the stand Friday and admitted he broke into the house near Christiansburg the morning of Sept. 20 while the 28-year-old mother slept. Wearing a stocking over his head, he woke her up, put two bandages and a blindfold over her eyes and took her to a bedroom downstairs.
He testified he then attempted to sodomize her and raped her on the bed. Shephard also said the woman's husband, who was out of town, offered to pay him to do it.
"He offered me $10,000," Shephard said. He said he agreed to do it because he already had been having an affair with the woman for three years.
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Skip Schwab asked Shephard why he had to disguise himself if he and the woman had been having an affair. Shephard kept saying, "I was just playing his [the husband's] game."
In his closing statement, Schwab told the jury: "He's not got one ounce of remorse. He thinks it's OK."
On Thursday, the woman testified that she had never had a previous sexual relationship with Shephard, whom she he had known for years. She said that the night he raped her, he threatened her life and the lives of her children.
by CNB