NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Va. — A sailor who slammed his girlfriend's head into a wall and then tried to suffocate her with a pillow in a Hampton Roads hotel room was sentenced at a general court-martial Thursday to four years in the brig.
Aviation Boatswain's Mate Airman Recruit Xavier J. Johnson, a two-year Navy veteran from Tennessee assigned to the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush, pleaded guilty Wednesday to multiple charges of aggravated assault, assault with battery and obstruction of justice.
In a plea bargain deal with military prosecutors, Johnson avoided facing the more serious charges — rape and attempted murder — he faced initially. Johnson was sentenced to four years of confinement in a military brig and a dishonorable discharge.
The charges stemmed from an altercation between Johnson and his then-girlfriend — a fellow sailor on the Bush — in a hotel room at the Navy Gateway Inn in Portsmouth, Virginia, on Sept. 14, 2015. At the time, the Bush was in an eight-month overhaul at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard.
"It was an argument that sometimes became heated and then would calm down and then it got physical," Johnson told the trial judge, Cmdr. Robert Monahan, during courtroom exchanges about the incident.
"I was extremely frustrated and pushed her back against the wall and shook her vigorously for about 10 to 15 seconds and while I was shaking her, her head smacked the wall a couple of times, fairly hard."
About 45 minutes later, the pair was laying on the bed, still arguing, when Johnson said he again became angry and attempted to suffocate the victim with a pillow.
"I held the pillow by both ends and pushed it down on her face, holding it there for five to 10 seconds with about half my body weight," Johnson said.
Johnson told the court that he did not intend to "inflict death or bodily harm," but admitted to Monahan during questioning that "if I had sustained my actions it would have smothered her."
Monahan read a statement from the victim describing her side of the story.
"Johnson put a pillow over my entire face and held it there for five seconds — I could still breath, but, I don't think he was aware of that," she said in the statement. "It lasted for about five seconds and when he took the pillow off, he told me 'I want to kill you, but it is not worth it.'"
Johnson told Monahan that the statement was true, but insisted that he never truly intended to kill her, though he admitted that when he persisted with the pillow assault, he believed that death could have resulted.
The next day, the victim's injuries were severe enough that she went to Portsmouth Naval Hospital for treatment. Johnson pressured her not to tell the truth and instead asked her to tell anyone who asked that she had "fallen down the stairs while going to pick up her laundry."
But the story didn't last for long as her injuries were physically apparent enough that it gained the attention of the command, which started an investigation. This time he texted her to hold to the initial story.
"Our statements to security have to match," he admitted to saying. "I never laid a hand on you."
The victim told the ship's security investigators the real story anyway, but that didn't stop Johnson from escalating his efforts to get her to recant those statements.
Johnson then posed as a his fictional brother — he admitted he has no such brother — and called the victim from a phone on the command's berthing barge in the shipyard, identifying himself as "Brandon," and pleaded with the victim to recant her statements.
"I tried to make her feel bad," Johnson admitted to the court. "I knew there was an investigation going on and I was afraid that I would end up at captain's mast or court-martial."
In the plea deal, the government agreed to drop the attempted murder charge, but did not remove the rape charge.
Instead, they agreed not to go ahead with any prosecution on the charge, according to statements made by Lt. Lauren Mayo, the Navy lawyer handling the prosecution for the government's case.
But, according to Monahan said, it is still possible the government could revisit the charge at a later date.
Mark D. Faram is a former reporter for Navy Times. He was a senior writer covering personnel, cultural and historical issues. A nine-year active duty Navy veteran, Faram served from 1978 to 1987 as a Navy Diver and photographer.
