PULASKI — Adam Richard Hodge testified Monday that he was trying to discipline two 12-year-old boys when he held pillows over their faces, cut one or the other with knives – or tied one to a wooden cross and beat him with another wooden cross.
A prosecutor called it torture.
Hodge, 36, of Fairlawn, pleaded guilty in April to eight felony counts of child abuse. On Monday, he was back in Pulaski County Circuit Court for a sentencing hearing that lasted three hours and ended with a sentence to serve 10 years behind bars.
After witnesses described some of the ongoing physical and psychological damage Hodge inflicted on the boys, Hodge took the witness stand to try to explain himself.
Speaking in a level voice, Hodge said that while he now knew he was wrong to do the things he’d done, he had been trying to deal with behavior issues that left him feeling out of control – of the boys he attacked and of himself.
“At the time I was unable to come up with a response. I had no idea how to handle what I was dealing with. I was lost,” Hodge said.
But prosecutors noted that Hodge should have been well aware that turning to violence was not a solution. Before he was charged last year with abusing the boys, Hodge had amassed seven convictions for violence against those close to him, including his mother, stepfather, a girlfriend, and his wife, who died last year while Hodge was in jail for assaulting her, prosecutors said.
His wife’s cause of death was kidney failure, as far as he knew, Hodge said.
When Hodge blamed one of his assaults on low blood sugar that left him “not responsible for my actions,” Commonwealth’s Attorney Justin Griffith asked Hodge if his blood sugar was low in all seven of the earlier incidents. Hodge said that it was not.
When Hodge said a pistol that he threatened and hit the boys with was a toy, not a real gun, Griffith asked if he realized that investigators collected a 9mm handgun from his house. Hodge said that he did not know anything about the firearm.
As the hearing entered its final phase, Chief Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Dina Branco described Hodge’s acts as “torture” and asked Judge Brad Finch for a sentence longer than suggested by guidelines that recommended a maximum three years and seven months behind bars.
Defense attorney Hyatt Shirkey of Roanoke argued that the low end of the guidelines, a year and seven months, was more appropriate – and that since Hodge already had spent more than a year in jail, probation would be enough punishment at this point. Hodge was remorseful, planned to seek help with anger management, and would obey restrictions to stay away from his victims, Shirkey said.
“He’s turned a corner in his perspective because of the charges,” Shirkey said. “… I think it’s clear he would take this back. He’d give everything to take it all back.”
Finch asked Hodge if he had anything more to say before sentencing and Hodge said he was “deeply sorry for my actions.”
The judge then told Hodge that his actions were “cruel, inhumane, brutal” and “completely unjustifiable.”
Finch sentenced Hodge to five years on each of the eight charges, said the time would run consecutively for a total of 40 years, but that it would be suspended after Hodge served 10 years. After his release, Hodge is to be supervised by the probation office for five years, Finch said. During the time of his sentence he may have no contact with his victims or any children under the age of 18, Finch added.
In a statement released after the hearing, Griffith wrote that he was glad Hodge got a tougher sentence than guidelines recommended. “Sometimes the softest cries for help are the ones that need to be answered with the most swift and severe justice obtainable,” Griffith wrote.
