Man gets 31 years for rape

ROANOKE -- A 23-year-old Covington man who blurted out his guilt in a courtroom while his accuser was still on the witness stand was sentenced to 31 years in prison this week for rape and other crimes.

"Stop it! It's all true! I did it! I did it!"

Those are the words Jonathan Travis Switzer said last year at his preliminary court hearing to halt the testimony of the woman he had raped. In May, in Alleghany County Circuit Court, Switzer followed up on his dramatic courtroom admission by formally pleading guilty to rape, carjacking, abduction with the intent to defile, violation of a protective order, and assault and battery of a law-enforcement officer.

Circuit Court Judge Malfourd W. "Bo" Trumbo sentenced Switzer to 77 years in prison Tuesday, suspending all but 31 years.

"The judge lowered the boom on him," said Ann Gardner, deputy commonwealth's attorney in Alleghany County.

On June 14, 2008, Switzer beat his ex-girlfriend, a crime for which he was convicted last year. An emergency protective order was issued telling Switzer to stay away from her, but he began calling her persistently. She went to the magistrate's office to obtain a warrant for his arrest, but Switzer intercepted her on Main Street in Covington, forced her into the back seat of her van and drove to a wooded area, Gardner said.

There, Switzer raped and threatened to kill her. She complained of a head injury and asked him to take her to the hospital, which he did, but only on the condition that she not leave his sight or say anything about the rape, Gardner said.

Once at Alleghany Regional Hospital, though, the woman tried to tip off an intake nurse by writing at the bottom of a sign-in sheet, "He raped me. Please help." No one noticed the note, so when the woman went to the restroom to provide a urine sample, she again wrote, this time on a wrapper, "He raped me. Please help." But again it was overlooked.

The charge of assaulting a law-enforcement officer stems from Switzer's stay at the Alleghany Regional Jail, where he began throwing food trays and fought the jailers, Gardner said.