By MARK SCOLFORO

By MARK SCOLFORO

Arundel Newspapers Staff Writer

Former county juvenile detention officer Richard Corvin, 32, of Fredericksburg, was sentenced to 23 years for forceable sodomy and six years for attempted forceable sodomy by a Fauquier jury on Friday, April 6.

Corvin, who at the time of the offenses was serving in the Fauquier Juvenile Probation Court Service Unit, was found guilty of forcing a boy who was placed in his custody to engage in sex acts with him the evening of August 25,1988.

According to evidence during the day-long trial in Fauquier Circuit Court last week, Corvin was telephoned by Deputy Robert Mosier after a 16-year-old Delaplane boy was arrested for possession of alcohol. Police cannot incarcerate juveniles; a juvenile probation officer must sign the required papers.

Corvin took custody of the boy at about 8 p.m. on Aug. 25, 1988, telling Mosier that he would bring the boy home. Instead, according to testimony, the two went to Corvin’s apartment across from Warrenton Junior High, where Corvin gave the boy a beer “and talked to me about my drinking problem,” testified the youth, now 18 years old.

The youth told jurors that Corvin began telling him about how Corvin and his friends engaged in various homosexual acts, then asked the boy if he wanted to have sex.

The boy testified that he resisted, but Corvin told him, “You’re going to do this or go to detention.” The boy said in court that Corvin told him that he would be raped in detention.

The two of them went into Corvin’s bedroom, where the two offenses occurred. Corvin later drove the boy to his grandmother’s home near Warrenton.

Corvin testified that the incident never took place, and offered evidence that he was living in Rappahannock County at the time. However, Commonwealth’s Attorney Jonathan Lynn countered with a letter Corvin wrote to his landlord stating clearly that he had moved in a week before the date of the offenses.

The incident may have never been reported, but the juvenile was picked up a year later on Oct. 21, 1989, for the careless burning of a hay bale and destruction of public property. The arresting officer was again Deputy Mosier.

When told that he was going to be sent to detention, the young man began crying, said Mosier. Because Mosier and juvenile detention officer Roy Anderson knew of Corvin’s cases in Rappahannock County, they questioned the boy and he told them what had happened.

Detention and Corvin “were one and the same thing in [the boy’s] mind,” testified Mosier.

Lynn told the jury, “When the defendant started threatening [the victim], that, ladies and gentlemen, in the mind of a 16-year-old boy with an eighth-grade education, is a perfect example of the weight and might of the government.”

The six-man, six-woman jury took about an hour to deliver its verdict. Sodomy carries a potential sentence of five years to life. Attempted forceable sodomy carries a two- to 10-year sentence.