Danville man sentenced to 24 years for sex crimes

A Danville man will serve 20 years in prison for raping and forcibly sodomizing a 10-year-old girl last October.

Christopher Alan Lehman, 27, had entered a plea of no contest and was found guilty of both counts by Danville Circuit Court Judge Joseph Milam on May 8.

Milam handed down 25 years each for the counts of rape and sodomy, suspending 15 years for each. That gave Lehman 20 years to serve on the two convictions. However, Lehman will serve a total of 24 years, 5 months because Milam revoked the suspension of a previous 4-year, 5-month suspended sentence for making a bomb threat. In addition, Milam ordered that Lehman be forbidden from contacting the victim or her family.

Lehman pleaded no contest, waiving his right to a jury trial. He committed the sex crimes while on probation for the bomb-threat conviction.

  According to accounts, the victim was visiting a friend next door to Lehman in October. Lehman threw the two girls a note asking them to meet him at the side of the house. The victim’s friend wrote “What for?” and tossed that note back.

Later that day, the father of the victim’s friend became sick and the girls walked next door to call for help. The other girl used the phone and left with the victim remaining with Lehman, who convinced the victim to go into the backyard and told her to close her eyes. Lehman then raped the girl.

The victim’s father told investigators that when he arrived to pick up his daughter he couldn’t find her. He called her name, and saw Lehman and his daughter walking from behind the house.

The girl told her father and her friend about the incident. Danville police were contacted and began their investigation.

They questioned Lehman, who wasn’t arrested and charged until December.

Lehman admitted he went behind the house with the victim, but said she made advances to him, that the sexual encounter was at her behest and he couldn’t stop her.

  Handwriting experts had analyzed the note that Lehman tossed to the girls, and they found that it was “extremely likely” that Lehman had written the note that was recovered.

During the sentencing hearing in Danville Circuit Court on Monday, the victim’s mother described how the incident has affected her and her daughter.

“It’s been a nightmare,” she said.

She said the girl has been afraid to go outside since she was attacked and that she has had to force her daughter to go to school. The victim is seeing a psychiatrist and is taking medication to treat emotional and psychological trauma, her mother said.

  Lehman’s mother, Jennifer Snead, testified that Lehman’s wife died in 2007 and his child lives with a relative in Charlotte, N.C. He took the loss badly and started drinking, Snead said. He was attending church and taking several medications for “his nerves” before he was incarcerated for the bomb threat, she said.

  Lehman’s public defender, M. Lee Smallwood, asked Milam to impose a low to mid-grade sentence because the victim suffered no physical injuries. In addition, Lehman had been depressed about the death of his wife and his limited contact with his child. Lehman also had developmental problems while he was a fetus, Smallwood said.

“There’s not been a lot of joy in his life,” Smallwood said.

When asked if he would like to make a statement, Lehman asked the judge “to have remorse on me.” 

Michael Newman, senior assistant commonwealth’s attorney, said Lehman has shown a lack of remorse for the crime. Newman requested that Milam go beyond sentencing guidelines and give Lehman life in prison.

“Don’t let him do it to someone else,” Newman said.

In handing down the sentence, Milam took into account Lehman’s developmental issues and the fact that the victim was not put through the added trauma of a jury trial. However, the age disparity between Lehman and his victim, Lehman’s probationary status for another serious offense during the crime and Lehman’s taking advantage of the victim’s circumstances were aggravating factors, Milam said.

“We now have a young girl who will live with this for a long time,” Milam said.

Milam also imposed 5 years of supervised probation on Lehman, that go undergo sex-offender and mental-health counseling and be on good behavior for life.