From the moment James Johnson encountered his victim carrying groceries outside her New Orleans home, he tried to take control.

It started, police said, when he asked her for directions, catching the woman off guard so he could force his way inside, according to the Times-Picayune.

Once in the woman’s home, he took what little control she had left, tying her wrists behind her and forcing her at gunpoint into a back bedroom, where he pushed her onto a bed, police said in 2014.

Johnson proceeded to rape the woman, an assault that ended when police burst in the home and “caught him in the act,” the paper reported.

Johnson had an extensive criminal history and was on parole at the time he was arrested, the Uptown Messenger reported at the time.

Two years later, the woman returned to New Orleans from Washington state, where she now lives, and sat in a courtroom for Johnson’s sentencing hearing.

The 22-year-old had pleaded guilty to a multitude of charges stemming from the robberies of four women, two of whom he sexually assaulted.

The woman was in court with an impact statement in hand, one she wrote to remind Johnson that his attempt to take control had been, at its heart, a monumental failure.

“You tried to take my power and control, and I am the one with the power and control,” she said, according to the Times-Picayune. “Now it is your hands that are tied.”

“You have hurt my family,” she later added. “You have hurt my friends.

“You have hurt your family and your friends.”

The Times-Picayune, like The Washington Post, generally does not name victims of sexual assault.

According to the Times-Picayune’s account of the courtroom scene, the woman “sat rigid, with her shoulders back, and looked straight ahead as she read what she wanted him to hear. Her voice broke early, then stayed steady until she left the stand.”

Johnson was convicted of multiple charges, according to the Times-Picayune: attempted first-degree rape, two counts of second-degree kidnapping, one count of home invasion, two counts of armed robbery, one count of first-degree robbery, two counts of possession of a weapon by a convicted felon and one count of illegal possession of stolen things.

A judge sentenced Johnson last week to 385 years in prison, according to the newspaper, which noted that he will be forced to serve a minimum of 50 years before he can be considered for parole or early release. Johnson will be about 75 at that time.

The Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

All of Johnson’s crimes occurred during a week-and-a-half-long crime spree in April 2014. Investigators told the Times-Picayune that Johnson relied on similar tactics during several assaults, such as pretending to be lost and asking for directions to get women to lower their guard.

Johnson made a habit of restraining his victims by tying their hands behind their backs, police said.

The victim told Johnson in court that she has taken lessons away from the brutal assault, realizing that “everything can change in a split second,” according to the Times-Picayune.

Now, she said, she has begun to live her life “more vibrantly than ever.”

Before Johnson assaulted the woman, she said, he told her that “life is hard for a black man on the street, and I wouldn’t understand.”

At his sentencing hearing, she pushed back against his cynical message, telling him she refuses to let his words fill her with bias and fear.

“I continue to give directions to strangers on the street; I am not afraid of black men who walk in my neighborhood innocently,” she said, according to the Times-Picayune. “I will not let you perpetuate racist stereotypes in my head.”

“I caught you,” she added. “And because of me, you will never hurt anyone else.”

Source: washingtonpost.com

Date Posted: Wednesday, August 10th, 2016 , Total Page Views: 2341