New Kent man admits to soliciting minor for sex

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A New Kent man who had trouble as a youth in the county’s school system entered guilty pleas to one count each of proposing sex with a minor through the use of an electronic device and attempting to have a minor expose themselves in a sexual manner.

Thomas Moody Garner, 22, of the 8000 block of New Kent Highway, entered the pleas during Aug. 10 New Kent Circuit Court proceedings.

In a summary of evidence provided by prosecutor Clay Blanton, from Nov. 1, 2014 to Feb. 26 of this year, Garner communicated with a 14-year old girl by telephone and text messaging. On Feb. 26, a message was sent by Garner to the teen. Instead of the teen receiving the message, the victim’s mother was in possession of the phone as part of a nightly routine to check her daughter’s emails and messages. The mother reviewed the 12-second video, stunned by the content. The video consisted of Garner stroking his penis and saying vulgar messages to the teen, including how he intended to penetrate her vagina sexually.

The mother took the video and reported the incident the next day to New Kent Sheriff’ Office. A New Kent deputy interview the victim, who said Garner made numerous attempts to get her to expose her breasts and send pictures to him in exchange for pictures of graphic nature of his body. Using technology to track the phone number that the defendant used to send the messages, authorities located Garner who admitted to the crime.

It’s not the first time that Garner has run afoul with the law. As a 14-year-old eighth grader at New Kent Middle School, in April 2007, just a few days after the massacre at Virginia Tech, he sent a message to another student threatening violence at NKMS that would exceed the tragedy at Tech.

In juvenile court, he pleaded no contest to one count of making a terrorist threat by electronic means and spent the next four years in and out of juvenile custody before being released on April 11, 2011. Supervision by the juvenile justice system ended shortly afterward on April 24, a day after he became an adult. On that date, he was handed a 12-month jail sentence, all suspended for five years, by circuit court Judge Thomas B. Hoover and ordered by the judge to refrain from using computers, electronic devices, and social media for illegal purposes or to harass others.

Three days later, New Kent sheriff’s deputies arrested Garner for probation violation. Several days earlier while using a computer, he had begun harassing a woman who turned out to be a cousin of sheriff’s detective Joey McLaughlin.

Garner returned to court that July where Hoover blasted the defendant for setting “the record for the quickest probation violation in my 30 years.” The judge revoked six months of the suspended sentence from April. Garner’s attorney, meanwhile, told the court the latest incident had taught his client a lesson.

While Garner’s formal sentencing isn’t scheduled until Nov. 16, under state law, he will serve at least five years in federal prison as mandated time for his guilty conviction of proposing to have sex with a minor.

Garner will undergo a psycho-sexual evaluation while awaiting his sentencing date.