“… Full sentencing was 360 years in prison with 335 years suspended, according to the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office. The suspension is conditional on ten years of supervised probation and 360 years of good behavior”
From the particular news story, convict is a 40 y.o. former cop.
So 25 years in prison, followed by 10 years of probation. I presume the good behavior bit starts immediately, but I’m not sure what the bar for that is. Any violations of the suspension conditions would mean prison for life. The conviction is for CSA though, so I’m not sure he’ll even survive prison that long.
The way it was explained to me is that you’re given a sentence for each crime you commit. The reason they assign a sentencing for each crime is so that if you’re exonerated of one later on, you’re not just released — you’re still on the hook for the others.
Suppose you you’re sentenced with breaking into someone’s house, stealing their valuables, killing the husband, and raping the wife. You get 25 years for each. Then it comes out that the wife had her lover over, who killed the husband, then the wife threw her lover under the bus and claimed rape. You just happened to be the poor bastard who broke into the house and got blamed for everything. A poor example but weird shit happens and it can be difficult to reconstruct what happened.
Those other charges get dropped, but you’re still guilty of theft and breaking and entering and still have to serve your time, even though your “total” time went from 100 years to 50.
For those wondering, [here’s the story OP and other’s are discussing.](https://www.wtkr.com/news/crime/former-chesapeake-officer-sentenced-to-360-years-for-charges-related-to-child-porn)
Not sure why nobody posted the link.
It’s a cop who was fount to have child and bestiality porn on his computer.
>CHESAPEAKE, Va.—A former Chesapeake police officer was sentenced to 360 years for child pornography and other related charges Friday, according to a release from the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office. He will actually only serve 25 years in prison.
>Attorneys say that XXXX, 40, was charged with multiple felonies in connection to child and animal sexual abuse:
one count of possession of child pornography
34 counts of possession of child pornography subsequent offense
one count of obscene image depicting sexual abuse of an animal
two counts of indecent liberties by a custodian
I removed the name because it’s a very common one and they didn’t include his middle name, making it too likely for some innocent guy to get accused of being this sick fuck.
There are 2 types of sentences when it comes to people being convicted of multiple crimes – **consecutive** and **concurrent**.
Consecutive means that the individual will serve the sentence for each conviction one at a time.
Concurrent means the individual is receiving credit for multiple convictions at the same time.
Let’s say a guy is convicted of 3 separate charges, and the sentence is 15 years for the first charge, 10 years for the second, and 5 years for the third.
Imagine you get a countdown timer when you arrive in prison. Someone serving a **consecutive** sentence would begin with a timer that started at 15 years. Once it hit 0, he would get a new timer for 10 years. When that timer expires, he gets another timer for 5 years. When that expires, he has served a total of 30 years.
Someone serving a **concurrent** sentence would get 3 different timers upon arrival. One with 15 years, one with 10 years and one with 5 years and they would all begin their countdown at the same time. His total time served will be 15 years.
If you commit a crime and are sentenced to 10 years, you serve 10 years. If you commit that crime 10 times, you will be sentenced to 10 sets of 10 years. You can serve those 10 sentences consecutively, in which you will be in jail for the full 100 years. Or you can serve those 10 sentences concurrently, meaning every year you spend in jail counts as one year for all of the sentences simultaneously. In this case, you would only be in jail for 10 years.
In addition to that, most sentences come with conditions. So even though the sentence was for 10 years, it comes with the option of parole after 6. So if you are a model prisoner and never get into trouble, that 100 year sentence might only be 6 years of jail time and 4 years of living free but monitored. But if a journalist is following your case, saying you got out after only 6 years for a 100 year sentence makes a very engaging headline, with plenty of outrage and engagement.
Two things:
First, sentences can be served concurrently or consecutively. Concurrently means “at the same time”. Consecutively means “one after the other”. So if you kill 5 people, a judge could sentence you to 40 years per person you killed. If you serve those concurrently, you’re serving five 40 year sentences, but all at the same time, for a total of 40 years. If you serve them consecutively, you serve one 40 year sentence, and then after 40 years you start your second 40 year sentence. Five of these in a row means you’re in prison for 200 years. The judge decides if you serve consecutive or concurrent sentences, or a combination.
Second, sentences for various crimes come with different parole eligibilities. Depending on the crime, and depending on how well you behave while in prison, you can be released early. Sometimes for some crimes you may only have to do a small percentage of your actual sentence before you’re eligible for parole.
So, take a total sentence of 360 years, but maybe it’s 6 sentences of 60 years, served concurrently, and parole guidelines dictate that you have to serve a little less than 50% before eligible for parole. That’s how you could possibly do as few as 25 years on a 360 year sentence.
And that would be an accurate headline of “sentenced to 360, may only serve 25”.
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