Plea deal denied by judge

Editor’s Note: The Enterprise is not at this time naming the parents arrested in this case in order to protect the identity of their children.

By NATE HUBBARD/Staff

An intricate case involving four local adults accused of offenses against children took another twist Thursday afternoon when a substitute judge rejected a plea deal worked out between Wythe County prosecutors and one of the defendants.
Paul Dean Sarver of Draper had agreed to plead guilty to a felony charge of carnal knowledge of a minor without force in exchange for charges of distributing drugs to a minor and cruelty to a child being dropped by Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Lee Harrell.
Under the terms of the deal, Sarver, 20, who had no prior criminal history, would have avoided jail time and instead been given a 10-year suspended sentence with five years of active, supervised probation.
He also would have been required to undergo counseling and register as a sex offender. All of the requirements put on Sarver as part of the deal were within the sentencing guidelines used by attorneys and judges to help determine appropriate punishments.
But Judge Ford Quillen, filling in for Judge Josiah Showalter Jr., said he was uncomfortable accepting the deal based on the age of the girl – 13 – at the time that Sarver is accused of having sexual relations with her.
“Thirteen is pretty young,” Quillen said. “I’m not going to accept it.”
Sarver was 19 in March when police say the sex occurred.
With the deal off the table, Sarver will now have a bench trial on Jan. 13, 2010, at 1 p.m. He can still plead guilty, but will have to do so without a sentencing agreement in place.
Allegations of Sarver’s relationship with the 13-year-old girl were unveiled in late March after police found Sarver’s father, Marvin Dale Sarver Jr., with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head at 287 Twin Ridge Road in Max Meadows.
Interviews after the incident led police to charge Paul Sarver with carnal knowledge of the 13-year-old and Marvin Sarver with rape of the girl’s 11-year-old sister.
Marvin Sarver, referred to in court documents as “Boo,” was also charged with sexual battery, distributing marijuana to a minor and possessing a weapon as a felon.
Boo waived his right to a preliminary hearing and is scheduled to have his charges considered by a grand jury in January 2010.
The parents of the two girls were each charged with six counts of felony child endangerment and one count of criminal solicitation, on allegations that they encouraged the Sarvers’ respective relationships with their daughters.
The criminal solicitation charge, however, was not certified to the grand jury by Judge Lee Chitwood at a September preliminary hearing for the parents in Wythe County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court.
Chitwood also declined to certify one of the six child endangerment charges against each of the parents. Harrell, however, said after Thursday’s hearing that he may still seek a direct indictment on the sixth endangerment charge against each parent when the other five charges are considered by a grand jury in January 2010.
The deputy commonwealth’s attorney said he does not plan to continue pursuing the solicitation charges.
The girls’ father also faces a charge of being a felon in possession of a weapon.
According to testimony recorded in the official court transcript of the parents’ preliminary hearing, the parents left Boo at their Twin Ridge Road residence on March 28 to care for five children – ranging in age from five to 11, including the 11-year-old girl Boo is accused of raping – while they went to a bingo game in Bluefield.
Boo, 41, lived with the parents in Max Meadows and was considered a family member.
The mother’s attorney, Keith Blankenship, and the father’s attorney, public defender Brian Luhman, argued during the September hearing that Boo was to blame for the disaster scene police found at the house shortly before midnight on March 28 when they were called to the residence after getting reports of a gunshot.
Police found ammunition, guns, drugs, beer, dog feces, pornography and general clutter scattered throughout the residence – not to mention Boo bleeding on the floor.
“It was unpleasant,” testified Investigator Wes Rowe of the Wythe County Sheriff’s Office about the odor in the home. “It smelled like feces and, animal feces and urine.”
According to the court transcript, Harrell claimed that the defense lawyers’ argument that Boo was solely responsible for trashing the place during an approximately six-hour period was absurd.
“… that’s sort of the picture I think Mr. Luhman has painted here, that there was some sort of diabolical Dr. Seuss, Cat in the Hat cavalcade of feces, drugs, guns and ammunition that occurred the second that the [parents] walked outta the house,” Harrell said.
Blankenship, though, said Boo was in fact a kind of Cat in the Hat house-destroyer, albeit a much more devious one.
“He’s the one who should be on the hook for all these crimes,” Blankenship argued during the parents’ preliminary hearing.
In addition to testimony about the condition of the house, Harrell brought Paul Sarver to the stand during the parents’ hearing to testify about the parents’ knowledge of his relationship with their 13-year-old daughter.
According to Sarver’s testimony – which Blankenship repeatedly attacked as “bizarre” and “inherently unbelievable” during the hearing –the girl’s mother gave him permission to have sex with her 13-year-old daughter.
“Are you claiming, under oath, that my client told you that you could have sex with her little girl? Is that what you’re claiming?” Blankenship pointedly asked Sarver, according to the transcript.
“Yes, sir,” Sarver responded.
Sarver described his relationship with the 13-year-old as a casual one.
“We was kinda going out,” he testified. “It was no seriously relationship, relationship. It was just, just dating.”
Sarver said he had a phone conversation with the mother where she told him he could have sex with her daughter as long as he used protection.
The 20-year-old testified that he took that to mean sex was OK as long as he didn’t “get her pregnant and knocked up.”
Sarver also said the father had similarly encouraged him to use protection.
“Well, he gave me money to go the store and get some condoms one day,” Sarver states in the court transcript.
Harrell told the judge during Sarver’s Circuit Court appearance Thursday that he was willing to give Sarver the plea deal since the parents encouraged him in his relationship with their minor daughter.
“The commonwealth has credible evidence that the parents encouraged the relationship,” Harrell said. “Both parents.”
Harrell also entered into evidence a letter during the preliminary hearing addressed to the 13-year-old girl and signed by “Mom” that referenced the girl’s sexual relations with a Pulaski County man in Carroll County.
The prosecutor said the letter was evidence of the mother’s “bad character.”
Christopher Todd Wymer was arrested in July 2008 and charged with one count of rape and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor for offenses involving the same girl police accuse Paul Sarver of having a sexual relationship with in March 2009.
Wymer’s rape charge was reduced to another count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and he pleaded guilty to the two misdemeanors on Oct. 22 in Carroll County Circuit Court.
According to online records, his jail time was suspended and he paid a combined $1,685 in court costs.
If the Wythe County grand jury indicts Marvin “Boo” Sarver and the parents on any or all of their charges, they will have trials in Wythe County Circuit Court, likely sometime in 2010.
Nate Hubbard can be reached at 228-6611 or .