ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 8, 1996 TAG: 9608080055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
Leo Harper, the less culpable of two Roanoke youths who maimed two men during what a prosecutor called a night of "pure, predatory violence," was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison.
Harper received the term for his role in the beatings of two men - one who was struck in the head with a baseball bat in his Mountain Avenue apartment, the other who was attacked hours later and left lying comatose on a sidewalk.
The 19-year-old was sentenced by Roanoke Circuit Judge Richard Pattisall, who on Tuesday sent his co-defendant, 15-year-old Davon Anderson, to prison for 15 years.
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Wanda DeWease cited Harper's cooperation with police in implicating Anderson as one reason why he deserved a lighter sentence. Defense Attorney Onzlee Ware also argued that Harper, who was 17 at the time of the crimes, did not use a weapon in the attacks, and that his involvement was less than Anderson's.
Both teens were convicted last year of malicious wounding. They did not contest allegations that they burst into the Old Southwest apartment of David Chase, beating him with a baseball bat over an argument he'd had earlier with Harper's mother.
Harper and Anderson also pleaded no contest to the malicious wounding of Roger Boothe, who prosecutors said was attacked several hours later the morning of May 2, 1995, when he approached the youths on Mountain Avenue.
Harper told police that he hit Chase with his fist - but not with the bat - and that that he may have kicked Boothe while trying to break up the fight. Anderson did the most damage with the bat, Harper maintained, then stomped Boothe's head on the sidewalk after the man had already been knocked to the ground.
Boothe remained in a coma for weeks, and is permanently disabled as a result of his injuries.
Anderson, who was at 14 at the time, became the youngest person in Roanoke convicted as an adult under new laws aimed a juvenile violence. He was not a regular companion of Harper's, Ware said.
"I messed up," Harper testified Wednesday. "I got with somebody I shouldn't have been with, and things happened that shouldn't have happened."
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