Judge sentences man to jail time for causing crash that killed Rappahannock girl
— A Warren County man must serve three months in jail for unintentionally causing a UTV crash in 2021 that killed 7-year-old Olivia Clatterbuck, who lived in Rappahannock County.
Judge Clark A. Ritchie sentenced Jerrell Stanton Leadman Jr. in Warren County Circuit Court last Friday to five years in prison with four years and nine months suspended, leaving three months to serve, for one count of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Clatterbuck, his step-granddaughter.
Leadman, 63, of Whitney Lane, Bentonville, pleaded guilty to the felony under an agreement reached between his attorney William A. “Beau” Bassler Jr. and Warren County Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Ilona White. Ritchie accepted Leadman’s plea and found him guilty of the charge.
Under the agreement, Ritchie dismissed Leadman’s charge of child neglect resulting in bodily injury to Olivia’s younger brother, who also was hurt in the crash.
Ritchie accepted the agreement after rejecting another version of it earlier in the hearing because it did not call for Leadman to serve any jail time. The children’s father, Jonathan Clatterbuck, had supported the earlier agreement because he did not want Leadman to spend time in jail out of fear of reprisal by other inmates.
“I note, again, this is, you know, these are tragic facts and circumstances,” Ritchie said. “However, I will note that this agreement does represent accountability in the form of some incarceration as well as the other terms and conditions and for all the reasons expressly noting the (victim’s) father’s and the mother’s, by virtue of the father’s sitting here today, objection to my insistence on incarceration, I will accept this agreement.”
Virginia sentencing guidelines recommend that Leadman receive punishment between probation with no incarceration to six months of active jail time. Leadman’s sentence falls in the middle of the guidelines.
The plea agreement also calls for Leadman to complete two years of supervised probation and three years of unsupervised probation. As a convicted felon and under the terms of the agreement, Leadman must have no contact with Olivia Clatterbuck’s brother, and he loses certain civil rights, including the right to vote and to possess a firearm. The terms of the agreement prohibit Leadman from petitioning the court to restore these rights.
Leadman had been facing a jury trial set for Jan. 24 on two counts of child neglect resulting in bodily injury. The court had scheduled a hearing for Friday on Bassler’s motion to suppress evidence. Instead, the parties presented a plea agreement under which Leadman would serve no time. Ritchie rejected the agreement and attorneys scrambled to renegotiate a deal.
“I do want to tell the court Mr. Clatterbuck feels very strongly that he does not want Mr. Leadman incarcerated and he wants ... me to ask the court to make sure that (the defendant) is placed in solitary confinement so that nothing happens to him while he’s in jail,” White said. “He does not want that guilt on his head.”
At one point during the negotiations, both attorneys met with Ritchie in the judge’s chambers for about 15 minutes. The attorneys came out and Bassler spoke with Leadman and White with Clatterbuck.
Clatterbuck appeared in court as the representative of his late daughter and her mother.
Ritchie said he understood that Clatterbuck did not agree with his rejection of the first version of the plea deal.
Virginia law requires that Ritchie, by rejecting the plea agreement, recuse himself from further proceedings in the case unless both attorneys agree he does not have to do so. The attorneys said they agreed to have Ritchie continue presiding over the case.
Earlier in the hearing, prior to
Ritchie’s rejection of the first version of the plea agreement, Clatterbuck read from a written victim-impact statement. Clatterbuck then turned to Leadman and criticized him for calling himself the children’s grandfather when he was not there for them until moving in July.
Clatterbuck has criticized the Commonwealth Attorney’s office for its handling of the case, particularly for not charging Leadman with involuntary manslaughter.
At a Nov. 14 hearing, Judge Daryl L. Funk rejected a proposed plea deal reached between then-Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nicholas L. Manthos and Bassler that would have resulted in the defendant’s conviction on misdemeanor charges and suspended jail time. Funk recused himself and Judge Alexander R. Iden, chief judge for the circuit, appointed Ritchie in Funk’s place.
White cited the transcript of the Nov. 14 hearing and pointed out that Funk rejected the agreement because he felt a jury should decide whether or not what occurred as a result of the crash was a crime.
“Also, Mr. Clatterbuck had not really been fully informed, was not in favor of the agreement and, again, if you read the transcript, that’s very clear,” White said. “So, basically starting over from square one, we agreed that Mr. Leadman would plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter.”
Clatterbuck wanted an agreement in which Leadman would claim responsibility for involuntary manslaughter, White said. Clatterbuck was on board with the agreement when it called for Leadman to not spend any time in jail.
Leadman has remained free on bond since mid-August 2021 shortly after his arrest. Ritchie ordered Leadman to begin his sentence at the Rappahannock- Shenandoah-Warren Regional Jail on Jan. 24, the date set originally for his trial.
A TRAGIC SUMMER EVENING
White gave a synopsis of the evidence she planned to present to the court had the case gone to trial. Shortly before 7 p.m. Aug. 10, 2021, Warren County sheriff’s deputies responded to a roll-over crash that involved the two children, White said.
“When deputies responded, they found the 7-year-old girl trapped under the top cage of a Polaris UTV,” White said. “There was a top bar that had fallen over and had crushed her head.
“The little boy was still stuck by the leg within the vehicle,” White said.
Virginia police Trooper T.W. Moade arrived at the scene and took over the investigation. An emergency medical technician pronounced Olivia dead at 6:59 p.m., White said. Leadman identified himself to Moade as the driver. Leadman told Moade he and the children were riding in the vehicle and he tried to grab Olivia who was hanging out of the UTV. Leadman said the grass was wet and he lost control of the vehicle while trying to grab the girl. The vehicle rolled on to its side. The crash occurred on the lower part of a slope, White said. Neither of the children were wearing seatbelts or helmets or any other form of protection, White said.
Moade saw beer bottles lying around the scene, White said. After Leadman told the children’s mother about the crash and to call 911, he attached a tow strap to a pickup to try to move the UTV off of Olivia, White said. Moade noticed Leadman’s eyes were watery and bloodshot and asked him if he’d had any alcoholic beverages to drink. Leadman said he’d had three beers throughout the day and had started a fourth. Leadman consented to a preliminary breath test and Moade arrested him for driving under the influence.
At that point, the trooper obtained a search warrant for Leadman’s blood to determine alcohol content. However, White said the commonwealth conceded that the warrant was issued to search Warren Memorial Hospital and not Leadman. Bassler had sought to suppress the blood-alcohol test results because the blood was taken from the hospital without his client’s consent.
Jonathan Clatterbuck also questioned why it took more than three hours from the time the trooper arrived until the hospital conducted the blood test. By that time, the results showed a blood-alcohol content of 0.048, which falls under the state’s presumption of intoxication level 0.05, prosecutors have noted.