Man to serve 7 years for gang charges

A Waynesboro man who dressed his infant son in gang colors and recruited for the Bloods will spend seven years behind bars for beating a man at a gas station, a judge ruled Monday.

“This gang business has got to stop,” Judge Humes J. Franklin said. “It just has to stop.”

Joshua Tally, 20, was convicted of felony participation in a criminal gang act and misdemeanor assault after he and Robby Maybush beat Garrett Spears at the Sunoco gas station at 420 N. Poplar Ave. — perhaps in an attempt to draw a known gang member into a fight, Assistant Attorney General Phil Figura said.

“It’s one of those cases where if you take the gang element out of it he wouldn’t spend a day in jail,” Figura said, describing the sentence as one of the lengthiest in Virginia on the gang participation charge.

“This is a case that could have easily escalated into something more sinister,” Figura told Franklin.

Tally said he has been “rotting away” in Middle River Regional Jail for seven months and asked the court for mercy.

“I did things I didn’t like,” he said.

Public defender Mike Hallahan requested that Tally be sentenced to no additional time.

Franklin also barred Tally from making gang paraphernalia, obtaining new gang tattoos and affiliating with gang members (even if they are relatives).

Kimberly Koeppen, regional director of the Virginia Gang Investigators Association, testified that Tally frequently wore red clothing and a pinky ring with a ‘B’ on it.

One photograph pulled from MySpace showed Tally’s son with a reference to “Crip killer” above the boy. The Crips are a rival gang to the Bloods.

Koeppen also testified that Tally was a close acquaintance of Jordan “Bloody Devil” Strickland, who was given a 43-year prison sentence by Franklin for a gang-related shooting in 2006. Brandon Clark was also sentenced to 43 years in that case.

Tally’s sentence is similar to that of Kelis Hamilton, who received seven years in prison for an Augusta County gang brawl in which he shoved a gun into a partygoer’s chest and branded another victim’s back with a cigarette, Figura said.

Tally’s wife, who gave birth to his second child in September, testified that they will stay together when he is released.

Maybush, 19, awaits sentencing for his role in the assault.