By Michael Copley
Staff Writer
mcopley@powhatantoday.com

A Powhatan County man convicted of having sex with a 16-year-old girl and a 15-year-old female relative was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison May 23.

William Allen Richardson, 39, and another man, 52-year-old Ormand Evans Dixon, gave the girls alcohol – vodka and orange juice – at Richardson’s apartment on Old Buckingham Road in July 2010 and then had sex with them, according to the the victims’ testimony in March.

Powhatan Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Richard Cox said Richardson told investigators he was intoxicated during the incident in question and “could have had sex” with the female relative. The girl had been in his custody for three years.

Richardson pleaded no contest to incest and two counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor.

At the start of a hearing May 23, Circuit Judge James F. D’Alton Jr. said an error in Richardson’s pre-sentencing report caused a “significant” change to sentencing guidelines in the case.

Asked if the prosecution had a recommendation for sentencing, Cox said, “The Commonwealth doesn’t have much to say,” adding only that the case is “one of the most aggravated situations” he’s seen.

“The excuse ‘I was really drunk’ doesn’t fly,” Cox said.

Richardson’s lawyer, Rodney L. Jefferson, said his client “realizes and acknowledges” the crimes he was convicted of, which the lawyer described as “inexplicable” and “unconscionable acts.”

He “understands that the nature of the charges does not adequately account for what happened that evening,” Jefferson said.

During Ormand Dixon’s trial in March, Tara Hatcher, a prosecutor who specializes in juvenile and domestic relations cases in Powhatan, said Dixon’s victim – Richardson’s female relative – was “sloppy drunk” during the first assault – “Really out of it,” a witness testified – and “passed out” during the second.

Richardson was present and participated in one of the assaults on his family member, Hatcher said.

He “turned his own [relative] into a victim,” Cox said May 23.

Dixon, who pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape, was convicted by a jury in March; the jury recommended he serve 30 years in prison.

On the incest charge, D’Alton sentenced Richardson, who pleaded no contest and avoided a jury trial, to 10 years in prison with seven years and six months of the term suspended. Two five-year sentences for taking indecent liberties with a minor were suspended entirely. D’Alton indicated the sentence is above the midpoint of sentencing guidelines.

Richardson, who will have to register as a sex offender when he’s released from prison, also faces federal charges for allegedly manufacturing child pornography.

“It’s one of those cases where you wonder what the value is of sentencing guidelines,” Cox said. in this case, “the guidelines are totally inadequate.”