Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 23, 1993 TAG: 9301230137
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
75-YEAR TERM RECOMMENDED FOR SODOMY CONVICTION
A Montgomery County jury found a Blacksburg man guilty Friday of sodomizing his 11-year-old nephew and recommended a 75-year prison sentence.The jury also found Johnny Dawson, 28, guilty of breaking into a neighbor's house where the child had run for help. The jury recommended a five-year sentence for the break-in.
Circuit Court Judge Kenneth Devore delayed sentencing Dawson until a presentence report is returned March 12. Dawson has prior felony convictions for property crimes, Commonwealth's Attorney Phil Keith said.
Dawson also has two pending charges of attempted sodomy of the boy, who does not live in the New River Valley.
The jury deliberated for two hours before returning its verdicts. The maximum punishment Dawson could have received was life in prison for sodomy and 20 years for the breaking and entering.
Dawson was accused of sodomizing the boy, who was visiting his father, on July 6, 1992. The boy's father was at work. The two men lived together in a local trailer park.
The boy, who is now 12 and in the sixth grade, testified Friday that he was playing the piano when his uncle came into the room, took him by the hand and led him to his bedroom. He said his uncle laid "nasty magazines" on the bed, then sodomized him.
"I was screaming," the boy testified. "I was saying `stop, stop.' "
After the attack, the boy said he turned on a television in another room and pretended to watch, but ran out the door to a neighbor's home.
The neighbor called police, but his uncle came in the home and hung the phone up as she tried to dial, the boy testified.
He said he hung on to a chair but his uncle pulled him away and out of the trailer.
The attempted sodomy charges that have not been tried yet involve previous summer visits the boy made to Blacksburg.
Defense attorney Randy Jones asked the boy why he had not told someone that he was being assaulted by his uncle before the most recent incident.
"When someone tells you they're going to hurt you, you don't want to tell nobody because you're afraid you're going to get hurt," the boy responded.
But in July, "I didn't care if he killed me or not. . . . I just run."
Keith had urged the jury to impose the maximum sentence of life, saying the child had his innocence taken away.
"Never, ever, will he be the same," the prosecutor said.