22 year old gets 5.5 years of active time in prison for 3 felonies

By Linda Cicoira

A 22-year-old Nassawadox man was sentenced Thursday in Accomack Circuit Court to five and a half years of active time in prison for three felonies that occurred last January.

Thomas Tyyale Johnson, of Lankford Highway, was given 10 years with all but two years suspended for theft, 10 years with all but three suspended for carjacking, and five years with all but six months suspended for assaulting an officer. Judge Lynwood W. Lewis Jr. set the terms to run consecutively. Upon release, he will be on supervised probation for three years and on good behavior for five years.

Johnson admitted to holding a knife when he ordered Lopez Morales out of the driver’s seat of a car in the parking lot of the Dollar General Store in Mappsville. A court document stated that Johnson told the victim to “put the phone down, get out of the car, give me the keys, give me the keys, get out of the car …” When Morales complied, the suspect “got in, started the car, and drove off.” The officer was assaulted four months later.

“We recognize that he is starting to take responsibility,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Spencer Morgan. “He is entering the most dangerous point in his life. This is where things go really south… it’s terrifying … What would have happened if the victim had tried to keep him from taking the car? … This is not a six-month fix.”

“I’m not a bad person,” Johnson told the judge. ” I’ve made some mistakes. I hold myself accountable. I’ve been lost for a long time … I wasn’t going to stab him. I was just trying to get off the Shore…. I wanted to give him back his car, but I knew it was too late … I’m just trying to do right this time.”

Judge Lewis replied, “Clearly, your juvenile record leaves something to be desired. The Department of Corrections has a lot of resources for you. This is serious… your juvenile record discloses a whole lot of problems.”

Testimony disclosed that Johnson had mental health issues that went untreated, was homeless at times, and got mixed up with the wrong crowd. It was also disclosed that at 13, he was charged with “chasing his grandmother around with a knife.”

Chief of Probation Anne Wessells reported, “Mental health is one of his greatest hurdles. He was just trying to survive … at age 22, his brain is still not mature.”