Bill would raise penalty for repeat offenders
When serial groper Lonnie Sturdivant is released from the Franklin County jail in less than a month, he will have served one year for his most recent episode of inappropriately touching a stranger.
That will be the longest he has ever served for any such incident. And by Prosecutor Ron O’Brien’s count, Sturdivant has been convicted of misdemeanor sexual imposition 16 times for uninvited touching.
Sturdivant, who is 60 years old with no known address, is a case
study in the frustration of dealing with a repeat misdemeanor sex offender, whose crimes typically carry no more than 180 days in jail.
“It’s a loophole that he’s exploiting in our judicial system,” said Keith Durkin, a criminologist and sociology professor at Ohio Northern University.
State Rep. Jim Hughes, a Republican from Upper Arlington, is seeking to narrow that loophole with legislation he introduced in March to enhance the penalties for such offenders.
Under Hughes’ proposal, which he hopes to move out of committee and onto the House floor this fall, a person convicted three times of a misdemeanor sex offense could face a sentence of up to one year in jail. The bill would require that the jail term be served consecutively to any other term.
The one-year sentence that Sturdivant is wrapping up was possible only because prosecutors indicted him for a felony after he groped a woman in an Ohio State University building in September 2016. Because Sturdivant had been banned from campus after previous groping incidents, prosecutors charged him with burglary for intruding on campus property to commit a crime.
He pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of breaking and entering, still a felony, and was sentenced on Aug. 14 to the maximum penalty of one year. He had already served 328 days since his arrest, meaning he’ll be released in mid-September.
“We’re lucky we kept him in for a year,” O’Brien said. “We were creative in charging him with a felony to get more time than typically would exist in a case like this.”
It is unclear from court records what, if any, counseling Sturdivant has received. Defense attorney Christopher Cooper, who represented Sturdivant in this case, also is uncertain about past treatment, but said Sturdivant has told him that he wants counseling.
“I think there’s a gap in services when it comes to addressing these people,” Cooper said.
The misdemeanor offenses that Sturdivant has been charged with over the years don’t carry the kind of lengthy sentences that can serve as an incentive to push defendants into treatment, Chief Columbus City Prosecutor Lara Baker-Morrish said.
Initial offenses are usually third- or fourth-degree misdemeanors, carrying 30 or 60 days in jail. A Municipal Court judge can put someone on probation for as much as two years with counseling as one of the requirements, but failing to comply would mean only a month or two in jail.
“That’s not much leverage when someone has a very strong compulsion,” BakerMorrish said.
Early treatment for misdemeanor sex offenses, such as voyeurism, exhibitionism or Sturdivant’s behavior, referred to by experts as toucherism, is essential, said Ronald DeLong, a sexoffender treatment specialist and criminal-justice professor at the University of Dayton.
“There needs to be treatment intervention early, before it develops into something more serious,” he said.
Voyeurism, exhibitionism and toucherism are “courtship disorders” that develop early in life, usually between the ages of 10 and 20, said DeLong, president of the Ohio Association for the Treatment of Sex Abusers.
Those charged with crimes related to such conditions can respond well to intensive treatment, including group therapy, usually in a program that lasts 18 months to two years, he said.
“You have to be motivated to stop,” DeLong said. “Rarely is someone self-motivated.”
He conceded that treating someone who is Sturdivant’s age and has offended so many times would pose a challenge.
Neither he nor anyone else interviewed for this story was aware of a case as extreme as Sturdivant’s.
“He’s somewhat infamous,” said Durkin, the sex-offender expert at Ohio Northern. “I have not heard of such a durable serial groper in the 25 years that I have researched, consulted, trained and taught in three states.”
Baker-Morrish said she is aware of three or four other repeat offenders on her office’s misdemeanor sexoffender caseload, but none on Sturdivant’s level.
In O’Brien’s view, Sturdivant “is beyond treatment,” which is among the reasons he supports Hughes’ proposed legislation.
“I think enhancing penalties is a good way of addressing somebody like him.”