Judge admonishes man to stop groping women
A serial groper who has been in the Franklin County jail for nearly 11 months since his arrest for fondling a woman on the Ohio State University campus will spend another 37 days behind bars.
Lonnie Sturdivant, 60, was sentenced Monday to one year in jail after he pleaded guilty to one count of breaking and entering in the case. He was given credit for the 328 days he has already served.
He approached a woman at the Ohio Union on the evening of Sept. 20 and asked to borrow her cellphone charger, then caressed her buttocks, Assistant Prosecutor Kara Keating said.
Sturdivant, whose address is listed as the streets of Columbus, has 16 prior convictions for sexual imposition in similar groping incidents and additional convictions for other offenses, Keating said.
Two incidents in 2011 on Central Ohio Transit Authority buses got him banned from using COTA. Sturdivant also was banned from the Columbus State Community College campus after he was convicted for incidents there in 2013 and 2015. The Ohio State ban came after he was arrested for several groping incidents around the campus in November 2013 and at the main library in January 2014.
Sturdivant apologized before he was sentenced Monday and told Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Charles Schneider, “I plan on staying away from the OSU campus.”
“It’s not the OSU campus that’s the problem. You have to leave your hands off other people. They’re not giving you permission to touch them. ... You have to stop this.”
— Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Charles Schneider
“It’s not the OSU campus that’s the problem,” Schneider replied. “You have to leave your hands off other people. They’re not giving you permission to touch them. ... You have to stop this.”
He asked Sturdivant to consider how he would feel if any of his female relatives were the victims of similar treatment.
“The next time the urge comes, pretend that woman is someone you care about,” Schneider said. “Yes, sir,” Sturdivant said. The sentence was recommended by Keating and defense attorney Christopher Cooper as part of the plea agreement, in which misdemeanor charges of sexual imposition and trespassing were dropped. The breaking and entering charge, for entering the campus building with the purpose of committing a crime, is a fifth-degree felony, with a maximum sentence of one year.
Sturdivant already is a registered sex offender because of previous convictions.