A Chesterfield County police officer was sentenced to serve
two months in jail Tuesday for stealing a diamond ring from a woman he drove to
the hospital and then selling it at a Colonial Heights pawn shop.
As part of a negotiated agreement, Officer 1st Class Joshua J.
Hill, 34, entered an Alford plea to a charge of petit larceny, reduced from
felony embezzlement, in the theft of ring between Feb. 10 and May 10 of last
year.
Under an Alford plea, a defendant does not admit guilt but
acknowledges there is sufficient evidence for a judge or jury to find him
guilty. Special prosecutor Nelson Fisher agreed to reduce the charge in part
because the victim in the case has since died and is no longer available to
testify.
Chesterfield Circuit Judge Harold W. Burgess Jr. accepted Hill’s
plea, which is tantamount to pleading guilty, and sentenced him under terms of
the agreement to 12 months in jail with 10 months suspended. Hill also must
surrender his Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services law enforcement
license.
Hill reports to jail Jan. 24 and will be allowed to serve his time
on weekends or under the jail’s work-release program.
According to a summary of evidence, Hill responded to an emergency
medical call Feb. 10, 2013, and transported a woman with mental-health issues
to a local hospital. Before she died less than a month later, she told family
members she had given two rings to Hill for safekeeping.
Following the woman’s death, family members tried to inquire about
the rings by leaving voicemail messages for Hill, but the officer never
returned their calls. After a friend of the woman’s family sought to retrieve
the jewelry and notified police, the department began an investigation and a
detective questioned Hill about the items.
Hill told the detective that he found one of the rings in question
in the rear seat of his patrol car. That ring, which contained several
diamonds, was appraised at $7,500. Hill told the detective that he sold it for
$145 at Boulevard Pawn in Colonial Heights and pocketed the money.
Hill said he retrieved the other ring, which had little value,
from a hospital trash can after the woman he assisted had thrown it there. Hill
turned that ring over to the police and investigators recovered the diamond
ring from a person who purchased it through the pawn shop.
The prosecutor said described Hill as a thief who betrayed the
public trust and “failed to exercise his good judgment” in a situation that was
“completely avoidable.”
“This is more than your typical property crime case,” Fisher said.
Defense attorney Craig Sampson said there is no question that Hill
mishandled the woman’s property, but the offense was more of a crime of
opportunity than one of premeditation.
The judge described the plea agreement as a “fair resolution” to
the case considering the circumstances, noting that state sentencing guidelines
would have called for probation and no jail time had Hill been convicted of the
felony offense. Hill, who joined the force in 2009, left the department last
September.
After the proceeding, a Chesterfield detective returned both of
the rings to the victim’s family.
