Prosecutors asked a Kanawha County judge on Friday to allow the state parole board do its job in the case of an East Bank man, who has served nearly eight years of a possible 35-year prison sentence after being convicted of several sexual assaults.
Thomas Henry Gravely was convicted in 2009 of four counts of first-degree sexual assault and one count of second-degree sexual assault. Kanawha Circuit Judge Tod Kaufman sentenced Gravely the following year to a 15- to 35-year prison sentence. The judge allowed the sentences for all of the charges of which Gravely was convicted to be served at the same time. Kaufman could have sentenced the man to spend nearly 200 years in prison.
Gravely was back in court Friday asking Kaufman to reconsider the sentence. Gravely hopes to be able to complete his sentence on home confinement.
"I want to be able to see my kids graduate," Gravely, a father of five, said during Friday's hearing.
Kaufman didn't make a ruling Friday. He asked lawyers to submit proposed orders.
Reconsideration hearings usually aren't held outside of the 120 days following a defendant's sentencing hearing. Gravely's request for reconsideration is part of his habeas corpus petition, which alleges his former lawyer was ineffective.
Ed Rebrook represented Gravely during the 2009 trial. Following sentencing, ReBrook didn't timely file a motion asking Kaufman to reconsider the sentence, according to documents in the case. ReBrook gave notice to the West Virginia Supreme Court that he planned to appeal Gravely's conviction, but no appeal was ever filed, according to Gravely's latest lawyer John Carr.
Documents note that Gravely did file motions on his own behalf requesting the reconsideration hearing. Assistant Kanawha prosecutor Fred Giggenbach, who prosecuted Gravely during the 2009 trial, agreed last month that Gravely deserved to have his sentence reconsidered.
Giggenbach, though, is adamant that Gravely needs to remain in jail. He said the judge cut Gravely a break with his original sentence.
"You're not the parole board," Giggenbach told Kaufman during Friday's hearing.
Gravely isn't eligible to appear before the parole board until 2024. By then, he will have served 15 years in prison.
The prosecutor also dismissed the progress Gravely reported making while incarcerated. He obtained his GED while in prison. A copy of his state Division of Corrections file was provided to Kaufman before the hearing.
"Nothing has changed," said Giggenbach, adding that Gravely previously admitted to sexually assaulting between 15 and 20 sex workers in Charleston. "The facts of the crimes have remained the same. Three women sexually assaulted by knifepoint and strangulation."
During Gravely's sentencing hearing nearly eight years ago, Giggenbach requested a stiff sentence. While Gravely's victims may have agreed to have sex with him in exchange for money, "they did not agree to be raped by knifepoint and violence," the prosecutor said at the time.
None of the victims in the case attended Friday's hearing. Giggenbcah said one of the women had told him she wanted to and planned to attend the proceeding.
ReBrook stressed during Gravely's 2009 sentencing that the victims in the case were prostitutes, including one who admitted during the trial that she had sex - mostly oral - with up to 10 men a night until she made enough money to support her $250- to $350-a-day crack cocaine habit, according to previous Gazette-Mail reports.
"These people with whom he was engaged were not innocents he pulled off the streets," ReBrook said at the time. "We're not talking about normal, average people."
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @katelwhite on Twitter.