New Kent Charles City Chronicle

News for New Kent County and Charles City County, Virginia | March 28, 2024

Drug treatment ordered for defendants in NK court

By Alan Chamberlain | May 21, 2008 10:23 am

A New Kent man will not be serving further jail time, but must successfully complete a residential drug treatment program as a result of trying to commandeer a woman’s car in the parking lot of a county convenience store.

Shawn Wade Walker, 29, of 2500 Dispatch Road in Quinton, was sentenced to five years in prison, all suspended for the next 20 years, on April 28 in New Kent Circuit Court. Judge Thomas B. Hoover ordered the defendant to undergo drug treatment. Walker had been convicted of felony attempted unauthorized use of motor vehicle during a February trial.

Last Oct. 8, Walker attempted to drive off in a 2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee belonging to a woman who had just walked inside the Quinton Exxon Pit Stop convenience store on Route 249. The woman’s son witnessed the event, snatched the vehicle’s keys from the ignition, and pulled Walker from the car when the defendant refused to get out.

The son and Walker engaged in a tussle that the mother joined before the defendant walked away. He was later arrested at another nearby store. The Pit Stop manager, meanwhile, said Walker, who was drunk, had been harassing other customers, attempting to get a ride, before the incident occurred.

Reading from a court probation officer’s report, Hoover noted that Walker, a veteran of the war in Bosnia, had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and as a paranoid schizophrenic. The report said the defendant abuses alcohol and illegal drugs.

Defense attorney Todd Duval argued for the charge to be reduced to a misdemeanor.

“I’d hate for Mr. Walker to become another veteran throwaway without being given a chance,” Duval told Hoover, adding his client has been unemployed since 2002 and is on full disability.

Duval said the incident was not a violent crime, but Hoover disagreed.

“Mr. Walker did not simply jump into an unattended vehicle,” the judge said. “This was close to being a car-jacking.”

Hoover denied Duval’s motion to reduce the charge, pointing to Walker’s criminal history. The defendant, the judge said, was out on bond from a charge in Henrico County when the New Kent incident occurred.

Walker, who pleaded not guilty at trial, can appeal the judge’s decision within 30 days to the state’s appellate court.

In another, unrelated case on April 28, a New Kent man pleaded guilty to one count of cocaine possession and was granted first offender status.

Sylvester Edward Johnson Bey, 53, of 4741 Olivet Church Road, Providence Forge, must perform 100 hours of community service, successfully complete drug treatment, and stay out of trouble for the next year. The case will be reviewed in a year at which time the charge could be dismissed.

New Kent deputies on Route 60 west of Providence Forge arrested Bey last Dec. 1 after a traffic stop. Prosecutor Linwood Gregory told the court the defendant flipped a lighted cigarette out the car window, just past the head of Deputy Joey McLaughlin who was questioning Bey at the time. The act prompted McLaughlin to order Bey out of the car and conduct a pat-down search.

The deputy spotted part of a crack pipe protruding from one of Bey’s pockets. A further search revealed two crack rocks, weighing .4 grams, stashed in a bag. Gregory said Bey was also charged with resisting arrest and littering for which the defendant was fined $100 and given 90 days in jail, all suspended, in lower court.