Stephen Dalton Baril, Grandson Of Ex-Virginia Governor, Pleads Down Rape And Sodomy Charges, Avoids Jail Time

The grandson of former Virginia governor John Dalton has managed to avoid jail time after accepting a plea deal after a Virginia judge reduced charges against Stephen Dalton Baril from a felony to a misdemeanor.

The New York Post is reporting that the former UVA student was able to have charges against him reduced from felony rape and felony sodomy to misdemeanor sexual battery and felony unlawful wounding in an effort to strike a plea deal as an Alford plea, a deal in which the defendant admits there is enough proof to convict him without actually expressing guilt.

The victim said that Baril raped her at his apartment after walking her home from a campus bar. Baril will serve no time behind bars, but will instead spend five years on supervised probation. Judge Humes J. Franklin said that neither party was happy with the plea deal, so he thought that made it a fair compromise.

The victim was able to make a victim’s impact statement for putting her through a “year and a half of hell.”

“You raped me whether you want to hear it or not. You robbed me of feeling safe in a city I called my home.”

Stephen Dalton Baril, a former University of Virginia student accused of raping a fellow student, entered an Alford plea on Friday and will not serve any prison time.https://t.co/vLuqJeMA81

— Richmond Times-Dispatch (@RTDNEWS) July 28, 2018

Baril’s lawyer, defense attorney Rhonda Quagliana, said she thought he client would be acquitted, but was not willing to risk 10 years behind bars.

“It is hard to predict and in the face of even the possibility he could have been convicted, he chose to enter an Alford plea.”

Areshini Pather, a deputy commonwealth’s attorney for Charlottesville, applauded the victim for coming forward and seeing the process through.

“When there is the ability to reach out across the courtroom and find some commonality in a plea agreement, it’s the responsible thing to do.”

Daily Progress says that the victim alleges that Baril forced her into his darkened apartment, forcibly kissed, raped, and sodomized her. She says that when they were walking home, Baril initially picked her up playfully to force her to his apartment, but then got increasingly aggressive.

Stephen Dalton Baril reportedly left the University of Virginia soon after the incident. Baril’s family has ties to the Virginia Republican party.

“Baril is the son of Steve Baril, a Richmond attorney who made an unsuccessful bid in 2005 for the Republican nomination for attorney general of Virginia. Baril’s grandfather was John N. Dalton, who served as the 63rd governor of Virginia from 1978 to 1982.”