Man convicted of exposure charges appeals sentence

An Amherst County man immediately appealed a three-year jail sentence Monday after being convicted of exposing himself to local joggers and college students.

Joel Michael Wooldridge, 31, of Monroe, was charged in a series of college dorm break-ins and indecent exposure incidents in October. He was charged with two felony counts of breaking and entering, along with four counts of indecent exposure and a count of trespass, all misdemeanors.

Lynchburg General District Court Judge Joseph Serkes heard the testimony of five women on the misdemeanor charges and a preliminary hearing on the felonies. In addition to convicting and sentencing Wooldridge on the misdemeanors, he also ruled there was enough evidence to send the felonies to a grand jury for consideration.

Lynchburg police Detective Collin Byrne testified that during police questioning Wooldridge admitted to breaking into the dorms at Randolph and Lynchburg colleges and to exposing himself during both incidents. He also admitted he had exposed himself to the joggers, Byrne said.

He said detectives questioned Wooldridge several times about why he was exposing himself.

“He was under a lot of stress,” Byrne testified. “He had lost his job and there was some health issues with his wife. Ap-parently, this was a way of relieving stress.”

In the first incident, a student at Randolph College testified, she woke up around 5:30 a.m. on Oct. 7 to find a man at the foot of her bed touching himself. She told Serkes the man, who she could not identify because she wasn’t wearing her glasses, did not leave until she threatened to call security.

Another first-year female student at Lynchburg College testified she was showering in a common bathroom at McWane Hall on the afternoon of Oct. 19 when she saw a hand come around her shower curtain. When she looked out, she testified, she saw Wooldridge leaving the room buttoning his pants.

Two female joggers testified they saw Wooldridge naked, touching himself, as they jogged along Langhorne and Boonsboro roads on Oct. 8 and 13, respectively. One said she saw a man matching his description driving along her jogging route two days prior.

The fifth woman testified Wooldridge tried to force his way into her stall in a woman’s bathroom at Central Virginia Community College on Oct. 20.

Byrne, the police detective, told Serkes surveillance video of Wooldridge’s car from the community college helped them find him at a store in Madison Heights.

Defense lawyer Andrew Childress argued that no one was touched or hurt in the encounters, that the acts were commit-ted out of compulsion and that Wooldridge’s mental health was in question.

Serkes said area residents were lucky Wooldridge was apprehended, because he was unsure whether the acts were becoming more aggressive.

“He’s put the fear of God into all these ladies,” the judge said. “They’re going to be looking over their shoulder.”

Serkes sentenced him to six months on each count of indecent exposure and to 12 months on the trespass charge.

Childress appealed the convictions to Lynchburg Circuit Court. A grand jury could consider the felony charges as early as Dec. 7. He remains in custody at Blue Ridge Regional Jail without bond.

Virginia Tech police charged Wooldridge with peeping into a dwelling and obscene sexual display based on reports from an Aug. 27 incident at a dorm there. He is scheduled for a hearing in Montgomery County on Jan. 20.