Retired Charlottesville plumber convicted of raping his neighbor

District Judge Claude Worrell ruled that 69-year-old Gary David Morris must serve 10 years of the full 30-year sentence.

“It has not escaped the court’s notice that this courtroom is full of people,” Worrell said, looking at about 50 supporters, a dozen of whom testified at the verdict.

But Worrell said he was guided by the fact that a jury weighed the evidence and convicted Morris in March.

“We have been through a process on this,” Worrell said.

Morris’s attorney, Scott Goodman, asked Worrell to overturn the verdict, claiming the alleged victim’s story about what happened on July 10, 2022, was not credible. She testified in court that Morris, her longtime Fifeville neighbor, complied with her request to fix a leaky shower but then suddenly raped her with an erect penis. She said he accomplished this by quickly pulling down her spandex running shorts, and she said she was too stunned to speak.

“Your Honor, this makes no sense,” Goodman said. “It’s unbelievable.”

“Prove it,” the judge replied. “Prove to me or anyone else that her reaction is in itself unbelievable.”

The judge particularly emphasized the victim’s silence during the alleged attack.

“There is no set way that victims respond to a sexual assault,” Worrell said. “The jury believed (her) beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Goodman reminded the judge of his client’s testimony at trial that he had not had an erection for more than a decade and that the alleged victim was the real perpetrator. Morris said the woman was drunk and undressed, applied lubricant to her vagina and asked him to have sex with her. When he refused, she urged him not to tell his stepson, a friend of hers.

“Why is this not inherently unbelievable?” asked the judge.

During closing arguments, Goodman continued his attacks on the trial, which lacked any physical evidence or other supporting documentation. Goodman said there would be protest marches outside the courthouse if a black man were convicted in a similar manner.

“And I would be there at those demonstrations,” Goodman said.

“Just because 12 people said it doesn’t mean it’s right,” Goodman continued. “The system can fail, and the system can be wrong.”

But Charlottesville District Attorney Joe Platania defended the verdict, pointing to the typically secret nature of sexual assault.

“They happen in the dark,” said Platania. “They don’t happen in the open.”

Platania asked the court to keep the written victim impact statement under seal, but quoted this line from it: “I struggle daily to heal and move on.”

Other than an attorney from the city’s victim assistance program, who sat next to her in the front row, the alleged victim had no one to support her during the hours-long hearing. In contrast, eight rows of friends and family of the man nicknamed “Fish” sat.

“There is no history of aggression in Gary’s past,” said his sister-in-law Julia Dovel, who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

“If I could only describe Gary in one word, it would be gentle,” said Frances Morris, another sister-in-law.

Another person named Frances Morris, the wife of the convicted man, also testified.

“I know Gary would not commit this crime and he did not,” she said. “He is physically incapable of doing so. If you have the power to overturn this conviction, Judge Worrell, I ask you to do so.”

As Morris was being led away by a bailiff, his wife screamed.

“I love you and I believe you,” she said. “You didn’t do that.”