Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 8, 1993 TAG: 9309080221
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE LENGTH: Medium
Patricia Diane Hawkins received suspended one-year jail sentences on each of the misdemeanors.
Circuit Judge Willis Woods, in accordance with a plea agreement, also fined her $250 and referred her to the Community Diversion Incentive Program.
The maximum penalties on each of the misdemeanors would have been one year in jail and a $2,500 fine.
Hawkins originally was charged with conspiring with Matthew Wood Ridgeaway, a Wytheville building supplies operator, to kidnap and sodomize a 21-year-old woman Feb. 18, 1992.
The victim testified at Ridgeaway's trial that Hawkins drove them to a remote area where a man in a ski mask blindfolded and bound her. She said she was placed in the trunk of a car and taken to a house where she was assaulted. She was returned to the wooded area where she had been abducted and released.
She testified that she managed to see Ridgeaway and Hawkins while she was held prisoner by peering from beneath the blindfold.
A jury convicted Ridgeaway of forcible sodomy, although not of abduction. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
The prosecution withdrew earlier charges against Hawkins when Woods ruled that her statements to authorities were inadmissible. The charges later were reinstated.
The victim has filed a civil suit against Ridgeaway and Hawkins seeking $1 million in compensatory damages and $3 million in punitive damages for physical and emotional injuries. The suit is scheduled to be heard Oct. 12-13 in Wythe County Circuit Court.
by CNB