Lynchburg man sentenced for beating another to preschooler intellect

By Chris Dumond
Lynchburg News & Advance
Published: August 22, 2008

A Lynchburg man could spend the next two decades of his life in prison after being sentenced Friday in connection with a beating that left another city man with the intellect of a preschooler, according to the victim’s sister.

Calvin Louis Mosby, 43, was found guilty of aggravated malicious wounding in January, a year after prosecutors said he and co-defendant Bryant Lamont Kemper beat Bill Janowski unconscious at Janowski’s home.

During Kemper’s March sentencing hearing, Kemper testified he and Mosby were escorting a female friend home after she claimed Janowski had attacked her at the boarding house where they lived on the 1300 block of 14th Street.

While leaving the house, Kemper said he and Mosby encountered a knife-wielding Janowski and that the three got into a fight.

At his sentencing hearing, Kemper said he couldn’t control Mosby when he hit Janowski with a metal vacuum cleaner head and prosecutors maintained the blows Mosby inflicted did most of the damage.

Friday, however, Mosby’s lawyer Leigh Drewry argued that Kemper’s statements to police showed that Mosby hit Janowski three times and that he was still active enough that Kemper thought he would get up and attack him.

Investigator Robert Moore of the Lynchburg Police Department testified Kemper told him “dude was still active,” after Mosby hit him, so Kemper said he kicked and hit Janowski until he was “snoring.”

Drewry acknowledged that Mosby had a criminal history of more than 20 years, but said this was his client’s first conviction for a violent crime. On the other hand, he said, Kemper had a five-year-old history of assault and battery against family members.

Kemper was sentenced to eight years in prison in March.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Gretchen Hutt asked for the judge to impose a 30-year sentence recommended by a jury after Mosby’s January trial.

“The damage done to this victim is irreparable,” Hutt said, adding that she believed Janowski’s level of brain damage and need for constant care were in some ways worse than death.

Judge Mosby Perrow sentenced the man to 30 years with 10 years suspended for an active sentence of 20 years in prison.