Savageville man gets five years for felon with gun charge

By Linda Cicoira

An Onancock area man was given a prison term Thursday in Accomack Circuit Court for a January firearm offense that was initially among several charges including the abduction of his former girlfriend.

Joshua Seth Powell, 34, of Savageville, was sentenced to five years with all but two years suspended for possession of a firearm by a felon. He will be on supervised probation and good behavior for three years.

Charges of abduction and two related firearms counts were not prosecuted against Powell because the victim failed to show up trial.

Powell admitted to authorities that he had thrown a shotgun into a ditch near the State Police barracks in Melfa.

At the time, Powell told the court that he didn’t remember threatening to break the woman’s neck or to punching her in the face. Both of them said they were using cocaine and molly, a synthetic drug also known as Ecstasy and MDMA, that weekend.

The woman said he forced her into the car at gunpoint and made her drive for miles before she got away from him at the Royal Farms in Onley, where she called police. She told them that he had thrown the gun out the car window. Police retrieved the loaded gun from a water-filled ditch.

Defense lawyer Isabel Kaldenbach argued the woman had left the house where the two had been using drugs and kept Powell from leaving. “Once she was in the car, she was in control,” the attorney said.