
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 3, 1991                   TAG: 9104030563
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: DINWIDDIE                                LENGTH: Short

SUSPENDED TERMS GIVEN EX-TEACHERS

A Circuit Court judge gave suspended sentences to two former teachers, one of whom performed sodomy on a 17-year-old while the other videotaped it.

Judge Thomas Warren on Tuesday sentenced Shirley Townsend to five years in prison for her conviction of two counts of sodomy. He sentenced David Townsend to five years in prison on a conviction of soliciting a minor to perform in a sexually explicit videotape with an adult.

Warren suspended both sentences for 20 years and put the Townsends on supervised probation.

In January, Townsend, a 43-year-old former music and art teacher at Peabody Middle School in Petersburg and a former tuba player with the Richmond Symphony, pleaded no contest to the charge of soliciting the 17-year-old to appear in the videotape.

Shirley Townsend, a 55-year-old former music teacher at Dinwiddie High School, pleaded no contest to the charge of sodomy with a juvenile. She pleaded guilty to a charge of sodomy with an adult, involving a separate encounter with an 18-year-old former student.

A no-contest plea means that while the defendants do not challenge the evidence, they do not admit guilt. In the eyes of the court, it is the same as a guilty plea.

- Associated Press

by CNB