Former sailor
Victim said her life is ‘forever changed’
sentenced to nine years in sexual assault of Navy girlfriend.
An active-duty female sailor detailed, during the sentencing of her former boyfriend, how being sexually assaulted by him had “forever changed” every aspect of her life, including her Navy career.
New London Superior Court Judge Barbara Bailey Jongbloed on Thursday sentenced former Navy sailor Kenneth M. Weatherspoon, 31, to nine years in prison for sexual assault.
Weatherspoon faced 21 years in prison. Jongbloed said in determining Weatherspoon’s sentence that she considered a number of factors, including his age, his having no prior criminal history, his difficult upbringing, his military service and the statement provided by the victim at the sentencing. In addition to his prison sentence, he will serve 10 years of probation.
Weatherspoon is required to register as a lifetime member of the state sex offender registry.
He must surrender or transfer any weapons or ammunition in his possession, and must abide by a lifetime protective order to have no contact with the victim whatsoever.
Jongbloed also ordered him to undergo sex offender treatment, a mental health evaluation and substance-abuse treatment.
When asked by Jongbloed, Weatherspoon said that he did not wish to speak at the sentencing.
“There’s no reason to think that the defendant can’t have a productive life going forward,” Jongbloed said. “On the negative side, this was a very violent and very serious offense, and the defendant’s
pending. Upon his conviction, a judge raised his bond to $2 million and he was taken into custody, according to Dunn. He also was ordered to surrender his passport.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit prepared by Clinton police officer Adrian Santiago, the Department of Children and Families contacted police in March 2015 after receiving information from a Hartford agency that works with immigrants and refugees regarding incidents of sexual assault at Moran’s home in August and December 2014.
The agency indicated the pastor threatened the victim and the witness with deportation if they disclosed the incident to anyone.
The police interviewed the mother and other witnesses, who provided details of the assaults. The mother said that Moran was helping the family with their immigration status and that he invited her to his home to help her obtain a driver’s license. She said he had started to touch her on the shoulders, leg and hair and send her text messages she felt were not appropriate, so she made sure Moran’s wife would be home. When she arrived, she said Moran told her his wife would be home soon, closed the door behind her and closed the blinds. She said when she sat conduct will affect the victim for the rest of her life.”
The victim, 24, seated feet away from her assaulter, read a statement that outlined, in great detail, the impact of the incident on her. About a minute in, she stopped and asked if Stephanie Barber, her victim advocate, could finish reading the statement for her.
The statement described how in the months following the assault she had nightmares that Weatherspoon would break into the apartment while she was sleeping and “rape and kill me out of pure rage for turning him in.”
She said that she began losing chunks of her hair, started to abuse alcohol, and became hyper vigilant. At restaurants, she sits against a wall facing the door so she doesn’t have to worry about anyone coming up behind her and hurting her.
After the assault, she lost
down Moran began to massage her shoulders and smell her hair and before she could stop him he reached down the front of her blouse and groped her breasts. She said Moran’s wife arrived home and she ran from the house without saying anything.
The investigation revealed also that Moran had picked up the daughter and a child she was babysitting and brought them to his apartment. The daughter reported that Moran put the child in front of the television with a toy and invited the daughter to go into a bedroom to see the diplomas of the 18-year-old tenant. She said he closed the door, reached beneath her shirt with one hand and groped her breasts outside her shirt with theother hand. She said she walked of the room. The daughter was so distraught over the incident that she began cutting herself and spoke of suicidal thoughts, according to the affidavit.
Moran’s sentencing date was not immediately available.
The case was prosecuted by Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorney Barbara Hoffman, according to police.
Attorney Charles K. Thompson, who had represented Moran, declined to comment on the verdict when reached by phone Thursday. motivation and desire to do anything that wasn’t required of her. She was “downloaded,” meaning she couldn’t carry her guns, stand watch or perform her daily duties. She also was scrutinized by her peers, who didn’t know the situation.
“Despite the fact that I was the victim, I was kept downloaded for ten months and felt like I had done something wrong,” Barber said, reading from the victim statement.
The sailor was placed on limited-duty status, and put at first lieutenant, a temporary assignment that involved picking up trash, conducting maintenance around the base, painting crosswalks, delivering newspapers and overall keeping the base clean, according to her statement.
“This is what many sailors on restriction do, sailors that have ruined their careers and have broken either military laws or regulations, or were deemed unfit for military life,” Barber read from the victim statement.
Prosecutor Lawrence J. Tytla said that when people question why victims of sexual assault don’t report what happened to them, “this case should be exhibit A.”
In March, a six-member jury found Weatherspoon guilty of sexual assault in a spousal or cohabiting relationship and third-degree assault.
The jury found him not guilty of second-degree strangulation.
Investigators seized video recordings that Weatherspoon had made around the time of the incident that showed him following her around the apartment and, he admitted during the trial, purposefully antagonizing her during an argument about them spending time with co-workers of the opposite sex.
During the trial, Tytla broadcast
following a lengthy standoff with police, and is currently incarcerated at the MacDougall-Walker Institution in Suffield. During the court hearing, the 6-foot-5 Mims wore handcuffs, shackles and an orange prison jumpsuit. He said he wants to take a nursing program in prison so that he would be able to find employment upon his release.
The woman is aware of the plea deal and may attend the sentencing, according to Victim Advocate Beth Ann Hess. The judge will be issuing a standing criminal protective order that prohibits Mims from contacting her or their child.
According to court records and testimony, Mims had been released from prison two weeks before the incident after a six-month prison stint for domestic violence involving a different victim. On the day of his release, the kidnapping victim attempted to obtain a restraining order, but a judge dismissed the case after conducting a hearing and determining the applicant had not met the statutory requirements.
Mims invited the woman to his home to meet his “sponsor” so that she would feel more comfortable leaving the child with him, according to a report prepared by Ledyard Police. He the videos for the jury and showed them pictures of the victim’s injuries, including red marks on her neck and bruises on her buttocks and rib cage.
In taking the case to trial, Weatherspoon had turned down an offer to plead guilty in exchange for a three-year prison sentence with 10 years of probation. Weatherspoon was represented by attorney Kevin C. Barrs, supervisor of the public defender’s office.
Weatherspoon served in the Navy for seven years, most recently as a hospital corpsman, Navy records show, but opted not to re-enlist, according to court testimony.
He was working in a civil position in the commissary on the Naval Submarine Base at the time of the incident, which happened in 2015 in an apartment on Gold Star Highway where the then-couple lived. met her outside, picked up the child, then grabbed the victim by the hair and shirt and pulled her into the house. No sponsor was present.
The woman said Mims told her, “You are going to die today,” and over the course of 4 1/2 hours, with their child present in the bedroom, he drank “nip” bottles of alcohol as he repeatedly kicked and punched the woman. He tied her hands and feet with a rope, and forced her to read aloud from a notebook of his writings. She said she got knocked unconscious several times.
Mims told the woman he planned to kill her and the mother of his other child and to take the children to the victim’s mother’s house, then kill himself.
Eventually, the woman said, she talked Mims into untying her and he used a large kitchen knife to cut the rope. She said he left the room when somebody came to the door and she took her daughter and fled, dialing 911 on her cellphone. She said she saw a woman delivering mail and asked her to call for help. Over the next six hours, Ledyard police said, Mims refused to leave the home, threatening during on-and-off communications to commit “suicide by cop.”