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Men get three months for sex acts with girl
By Preston Knight - pknight@nvdaily.com
WOODSTOCK -- Two Mt. Jackson men will spend the next three months in jail for committing sex acts on a 13-year-old girl last fall.
Burton D. Raymond, 22, of 1623 Orchard Road, and Timothy Scott Tisinger, 19, of 206 Conicville Road, were each sentenced Wednesday in Shenandoah County Circuit Court to five years in prison, with all but three months in jail suspended, for carnal knowledge. Raymond had sex with the girl and Tisinger performed oral sex on her, court records state.
Sentencing guidelines in the cases did not call for active incarceration, but Judge Dennis L. Hupp, after spending roughly 40 minutes in recess, said he wanted to send a message.
"The message has to be clear that we will not tolerate this type of interaction," he said.
Most of the court hearing -- the defendants were sentenced at the same time -- was spent recognizing the fact that the girl initiated contact and, later, sexual conduct with the men. According to Tisinger's attorney, Amanda Wiseley, her client was asked by a friend to send a picture to the girl on his cell phone. The two did not know each other before that.
Court records state that the girl later requested a picture of Raymond, and the three arranged to meet. Raymond states in court records that the girl wanted to date both men.
On Nov. 15, the girl's mother notified police that her daughter had left to go on a walk and had not returned. Once she did about seven hours later, she admitted to being with Tisinger and Raymond, both of whom provided her with beer.
The defendants picked up the girl along Burkholder Road in New Market and started driving around before stopping near Bryce Resort, records state.
"[S]he said she wanted to go somewhere and get lost, because she didn't want to stay [home]," Raymond states in court records.
Tisinger, in a statement to investigators, also mentions the girl wanting to get lost, while he acknowledges that he told her maybe they should not go anywhere. Still, the meeting occurred, and Raymond had sex with the girl in the back seat of the car after she climbed on top of him naked while Tisinger was somewhere outside. Tisinger then performed oral sex on the victim upon returning to the vehicle, and he told authorities he was not sure what Raymond and the girl did.
Raymond inquired about the girl's age and was told she was old enough before the pair had consensual sex, defense attorney John Castro-O'Neil said.
"I thought she was 18, you know," Raymond said to Hupp.
Tisinger, who was 18 at the time, thought she was 15 or 17, which is not a "big difference," Wiseley said.
"It's so sad to me," Hupp said. "It's such a sad commentary on our culture, on our society, when sex becomes a game for our children. ... I understand that these men may not have known how young she was, but I certainly believe they knew that she was underage."
He said the men should have seen the "red flags" -- that the girl had to meet them alongside the road and that they were hesitant to do anything in the first place. Also, their cause was not helped by the fact they bought beer for someone who they certainly knew was not of legal age to drink, Hupp added.
The girl did not want to have charges brought against the men, but it was more than just not wanting to see them go to jail, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Ken Alger said. The girl broke down crying in his office one day, he said, but she was just as adamant about not wanting to share her sex life with strangers -- in other words, with investigators. The victim did not fill out a victim impact statement, but her mother did write a long letter, Alger said.
The prosecutor said that Raymond and Tisinger were the most forthcoming defendants the county has had in a case such as this.
Both men are now registered sex offenders, and upon their release from jail face five years of probation. They are responsible for $667.93 in restitution, which will go toward the victim's counseling costs.
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