VIRGINIA BEACH (WAVY) — A Virginia Beach man will serve three decades in prison after pleading guilty to the sexual assault and robbery of a woman in 2016.
Ronnie Anderson, 27, was sentenced to 60 years on Tuesday by Circuit Court Judge A. Bonwill Shockley, but with 30 years suspended.
Anderson, formerly of the 5800 block of Northampton Boulevard, pleaded guilty in the case in November 2019, after facing charges of forcible sodomy, object sexual penetration, robbery, abduction with the intent to gain pecuniary benefit, abduction and conspiracy.
The Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney in Virginia Beach says had the case gone to trial, evidence would have proven Anderson and another male William Coston, robbed and sexually the woman shortly after midnight on February 21, 2016, after she returned to her hotel room at the Wingate Inn in Virginia Beach.
Prosecutors say Anderson initiated the assault, and Coston, who was a juvenile at the time, went along. Coston later apologized and told the woman Anderson made him do it, and that they were only supposed to rob her.
The woman eventually got away and got help. Anderson and Cooper were found in a nearby hotel room, and knives they used during the abduction were recovered from a storm drain.
The commonwealth’s attorney’s office said Anderson was on probation at the time of the assault, after prior convictions for aggravated sexual battery of a minor and grand theft auto. Due to that, he received another year and six months to serve.
Coston pleaded guilty on charges of robbery, object sexual penetration, forcibile sodomy, abduction and conspiracy on February 14, 2017. He was sentenced to 50 years with 40 suspended.
