Jury: Arrington man guilty of abuse charges

An Arrington man was convicted in Nelson County Circuit Court last week of indecent liberties with a minor after a two-day jury trial.

A jury of eight women and four men deliberated for more than four hours before recommending that John Edward Johnson Jr., 48, spend five years in prison for the conviction, which is a felony and carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

Johnson was originally charged in May with 46 counts of rape and two counts of proposed indecent liberties last May. He pleaded not guilty to all charges. Proposed indecent liberties means that the defendant proposed the sexual acts.

The incidents took place between July 2004 and April 2008, when the victim was a minor between 13 and 17. The Nelson County Times does not name victims of sexual abuse.

The victim testified that she was scared to tell anyone what was occurring because she feared for the safety of her family members.

A former Nelson sheriff’s investigator, M.E. Bridgwater, testified that the victim’s accusations in May 2008 prompted a search warrant to be executed on Johnson’s home, where bedding from the victim’s room was taken.

Kristen Van Itallie, a forensic scientist for the Virginia Department of Forensic Science, testified she tested the bedding taken from the victim’s room for DNA.

Van Itallie said she found 23 separate seminal stains on five of the six items taken from the room and that Johnson’s DNA was present in 22.

Van Itallie said the victim could not be included or excluded from two of the stains because more than one person contributed and that she couldn’t identify the person by the DNA.

Johnson testified that he never had sex with the victim and that he and his wife, Pam Walcob, 40, would occasionally sleep in the room and have sex.

Commonwealth’s attorney Phil Payne said the defense developed a “smoke screen” with its witnesses.

“This is an awful case,” Payne said. “The world 98 percent of us live in is not the world this child lives in.”

Johnson’s attorney, Steve Eubank, said the victim’s story was a means to an end and that “common sense tells you John Johnson is not guilty.”

“The DNA does not conclude that he had sex with her,” Eubank said. “Technology does not place John Johnson in that room every time he had sex.”

Johnson is being held without bond at the Ablemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail without bond. His sentencing date has not been set.