PORTSMOUTH
A man who already served a full sentence for seriously injuring a Chesapeake woman while “hotdogging” drunk on a motorcycle five years ago is headed back to prison.
Chief Circuit Court Judge Mark S. Davis sentenced Joshua Bristol today to five years for maiming and one year for driving under the influence of alcohol. He suspended two years and six months on the maiming charge, provided Bristol successfully completes two years on supervised release.
The charges stemmed from July 4, 2003, when Bristol struck April Mapp Sawyer in the parking lot outside Three Cheers, a restaurant and lounge in Cradock.
Mapp, who doesn’t remember the incident, was seriously injured and has not been able work since.
Bristol was first convicted of the charges in 2004, but he appealed.
In November 2006, the Virginia Supreme Court overturned Bristol’s 2004 conviction.
A majority of the court ruled that an analysis of a blood test should not have been admitted as evidence because Bristol was not officially arrested when he consented to the test.
When the high court ruled, Bristol had already served his sentence of the first convictions.
Portsmouth prosecutors decided to bring the charges back.
Bristol stood trial again in March and was convicted again of the same charges.
Character witnesses who spoke today at Bristol’s sentencing said he had turned his life around and had not drank since the accident.
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