THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 26, 1996 TAG: 9604260510
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANGELITA PLEMMER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines
At 23, Nathaniel Richardson had been charged with about three dozen crimes, ranging from trespassing to murder. Yet he had never been convicted of a felony.
His luck ran out on Thursday.
A jury found Richardson guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the March 1995 shooting death of his girlfriend, Telisha Johnson, 19, and sentenced him to five years in prison. The verdict ended a three-day trial.
Richardson, an alleged drug dealer frequently released on bond only to be arrested and charged with further crimes, has become something of a poster boy for what some have described as a revolving-door criminal justice system in Portsmouth.
Prosecutors had sought a first-degree murder conviction against Richardson. The case hinged on the testimony of Johnson's 6-year-old brother, Manthoree, who said Wednesday that he saw Richardson shoot his sister.
In a voice barely audible, fiddling with his hands and looking down, Manthoree testified, ``She got shot.''
Asked by Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Will Jamerson who shot the woman, the boy answered, ``Skeet'' - Richardson's nickname.
The boy then stood and placed his hand on his chest to show the jurors where his sister was shot: ``In the heart.''
According to police, Telisha Johnson was killed March 21, 1995, by a single shot that went through her right arm into her chest and exited her back.
After the shooting, Manthoree testified, Richardson and another man threw the murder weapon, a .357-caliber Magnum, into a Dumpster.
Richardson, crying on the stand, testified Thursday that the shooting was accidental. He said that he had returned from the barbershop and that his girlfriend had cooked dinner. She told him she had removed his .357 from beneath the mattress on the bed where they slept because Manthoree and the boy's 11-month-old niece were napping on the bed.
Richardson said Johnson had hidden the gun beneath the living room couch. She reached under the couch, removed the gun and handed it to him, handle-first, he testified. He took the gun from her and tripped on workout equipment. As he fell backward, the gun discharged once, striking her.
``Telisha kind of stumbled forward and then she fell in the corner,'' he testified. ``She said, `Skeet, help me.' ''
An autopsy revealed several scrapes and bruises on her body. Richardson said they resulted when he tried to pick her up and carry her to his car after the shooting. He then drove her to the hospital.
``I couldn't believe what happened. It didn't seem real,'' he said. ``I loved her.''
Prosecutors argued that there was nothing faulty with the gun to cause an accidental discharge and that Telisha Johnson's fingerprints were not found on the gun.
``There's no question he did it,'' Jamerson told the jury. ``Just because he said it was an accident doesn't make it an accident.''
Defense attorney James Broccoletti told the jury the shooting was indeed accidental. He said after the shooting, Richardson said, ``Just send me to the electric chair. I shot my girl.''
``Why did he shoot her? Mr. Jamerson has never answered that question,'' Broccoletti said. ``If there is no motive, if there is no reason, then there is no guilt.''
Richardson has had many brushes with the law.
Since 1991, he has been released on bail 25 times on charges that include murder and drug dealing. In 1994, he was acquitted on a murder charge.
He was arrested and charged with conducting one of the biggest cocaine deals in the city's history last year after, police say, they found him and two other men in a Southside Gardens apartment with $72,000 worth of crack cocaine.
Last week, Portsmouth prosecutors decided not to pursue drug charges against Richardson so that charges can be filed against him in federal court, where penalties are stiffer. Richardson and his co-defendants, Joseph Dodd, 25, and James Whittaker, 30, were charged with conspiracy, possession with intent to distribute cocaine, and possession of firearms with drugs after police raided a Fifth Street apartment last May. Police found about 700 grams of crack cocaine.
Richardson was out on bail, charged with Johnson's murder.
Richardson is no stranger to bail bondsmen: On March 23, 1995, he was charged with Johnson's death and released on $50,000 bond. On May 2, 1995, he was charged with possession of a firearm and drugs, and released on a $75,000 bond. On June 20, he was charged with driving under the influence and refusal to take a Breathalyzer test. He was released on $10,000 bond.
He twice was charged with failure to appear in court and was released on bonds of $8,000 and $1,000. It was a misdemeanor charge that finally landed him in jail without bond.
In January, Circuit Judge Von L. Piersall Jr. ordered Richardson held after Richardson allegedly hit a police officer while free on bond for two felony charges.
``This defendant is again associated with matters of a violent nature,'' Piersall said in upholding a lower court's denial of bond. ILLUSTRATION: Nathaniel Richardson
KEYWORDS: SHOOTING MURDER JURY TRIAL VERDICT by CNB