Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 22, 1993 TAG: 9307220116
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Leonard E. Gibson, 41, testified that he needs treatment "to stop all the pain that this is causing."
But Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Wanda DeWease said the only pain Gibson was concerned about was his own.
"There has been entirely too much focus on `poor Mr. Gibson,' " DeWease said. "We haven't thought enough about the victim in this case."
The girl is the youngest victim of a sexual abuse case prosecuted in Roanoke during recent years, DeWease said.
But she was not Gibson's first victim.
In May 1990, Gibson was released from prison on mandatory parole after serving half of an eight-year sentence for sodomizing a 9-year-old girl. He's also been convicted of indecent exposure.
The first time he was in prison, Gibson testified, he stopped attending counseling for sexual offenders after word got out. "Inmates ran all over the compound telling who was in there and what for," he said.
After he was paroled, he said, he quit counseling because he lost his job and could no longer afford to go.
"I would just like to get some help for this problem that I've got," he told Judge Clifford Weckstein. "I know I can't do it by myself because I've tried."
Earlier this year, Gibson pleaded guilty to sodomizing a 4-year-old girl he was babysitting in a Southeast Roanoke home. Prosecutors said Gibson called the child into his bedroom, instructed her to fondle him and then performed oral sex on her.
Weckstein sentenced Gibson to life in prison plus 12 years for violating his parole on the earlier charge, but suspended all but 29 years.
Since Gibson has been in jail, he was been held in isolation for his own protection after other inmates learned of the charges against him, according to defense attorney Al Wilson.
Wilson had asked that Gibson be confined in a treatment facility, arguing that he would not get adequate treatment in prison before he eventually walks free.
Gibson will be eligible for parole after serving about one-fourth of his sentence.
by CNB