A 55-year-old Charleston man convicted of sexually assaulting a girl was sentenced Wednesday to spend up to 330 years in prison.
Henry Wayne Johnston continued to proclaim his innocence up until Kanawha Circuit Judge Duke Bloom handed down the 100- to 330-year prison sentence. Johnston would have to serve 100 years in prison before even getting a chance at parole, said assistant Kanawha prosecutor Fred Giggenbach.
"You preyed upon a very young child," Bloom told Johnston. "I see no opportunity of recovery for you or the victim in the matter."
Johnston, though, said he was innocent and had turned down a plea offer on the eve of his trial from prosecutors that would have made him eligible for release after serving a year in jail.
"I turned down a pretty good plea bargain to take this to trial because I knew I didn't do this," he told the judge.
In November, Johnston was convicted of two counts of first-degree sexual assault, four counts of sexual abuse by a parent guardian, custodian or person in a position of trust and two counts of first-degree sexual abuse. Jurors found that he sexually assaulted a girl for three years, beginning when she was 8 years old.
Early Wednesday, Johnston was sentenced to spend between 72 to 160 years in prison on the charges. But soon after the hearing, prosecutors said it was realized that probation officers had miscalculated the range of years the charges carry, not taking into account the victim's age. Bloom brought him back Wednesday afternoon to correct the sentence.
Jurors found him not guilty of one count of first-degree sexual assault and one count of sexual abuse by a parent or guardian. He had also faced four counts of possessing child pornography, but Bloom dismissed those charges during the trial.
Johnston's attorney, Richard Holicker, a deputy Kanawha public defender, said that prosecutors offered before the trial to drop all of the charges in exchange for a guilty plea to the pornography charges. Giggenbach responded that when he offered that deal he didn't know whether the girl would be able to testify during the trial. The prosecutor added that he always tries to keep victims of sexual assaults - especially children - from having to go through a trial.
"I make every attempt to keep that little girl or little boy off the stand so they are not re-traumatized," Giggenbach said. He said Johnston thought "no one would ever catch him. He never thought that little girl would have the courage to take the stand because of the threats he had made against her."
The day the trial began, the girl, now 11, took several steps inside the courtroom and quickly backed out. She sobbed and pleaded not to take the stand.
When she did take the stand, a computer monitor shielded her from having to look at Johnston.
Johnston had lived in the basement of the home the girl shared with her mother in South Charleston. He would sometimes babysit her while her mother attended school.
She testified that Johnston would force her to perform oral sex on him. Giggenbach said the girl didn't initially come forward about the abuse because Johnston threatened to kill her.
Johnston's brother, Steve, took the stand Wednesday and said he didn't believe that Johnston had committed the abuse. Steve Johnston said if Bloom were to sentence his brother to home confinement or probation that he could provide him with a place to live and ensure no children ever came to the house.
Steve Johnston also said that his children grew up around their uncle and that this was completely out of character.
"Did anything bad ever happen?" Holicker asked Steve Johnston.
"No," he responded.
"Did you trust him around them?" the attorney continued, referring to Steve Johnston's children.
"I still do," Steve Johnston said about his brother.
Johnston told the judge that his attorney never called the victim's step-sister who would have allegedly testified that the victim was lying about the abuse. His attorney said he plans to appeal.
Most in Johnston's position, before being sentenced, would be apologetic, Holicker said.
"That's not going to happen in this case because my client has asserted his innocence," Holicker said.
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