A judge handed down a nearly 35-year sentence Tuesday to a man who sexually assaulted and kidnapped his girlfriend, after which he was shot by a St. Paul police officer during a manhunt.
Dakota County Judge Dannia Edwards said she agreed with the prosecution’s request for a long sentence because Joseph Javonte Washington livestreamed the sexual assault “for the world to see” and because he assaulted the woman in her Lakeville residence, a place where she should have been safe.
Joseph Javonte Washington (Courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Corrections)
After Washington assaulted the woman in November 2020, he instructed her “to drive him at high speeds from Lakeville to St. Paul,” which she did due to “fear and self-preservation,” Assistant Dakota County Attorney Caitie Prokopowicz wrote in a memo to the court.
Washington, now 35, ran and hid in a dumpster behind a funeral home in St. Paul’s North End.
He yelled from the dumpster that he had a gun. The officer who shot him reported that Washington wasn’t fully facing the officers when he jumped out and he couldn’t tell if he was armed, according to prosecutors.
Washington, who was naked, turned out to be unarmed.
Former girlfriend: ‘Lost a piece of myself’
The woman who’d been in a relationship with Washington said in court Tuesday that Nov. 28, 2020, “is a day that I unfortunately will never forget. I lost a piece of myself that I will never get back because of what Joe did.”
She said she’s constantly afraid she’ll see Washington and she can’t sleep more than a couple of hours at a time.
“I think about Joe trying to kill me and almost succeeding,” she said.
Washington punched the woman in the face, breaking her eye socket. He held a knife to her neck and forced her to perform a sex act on him, Prokopowicz said during the trial. The prosecution also said he caused the vehicle to crash as the woman drove him.
The woman said she had loved Washington, but he hurt her “in more ways” than she could describe, adding that he continued to “manipulate … and harass” her after the assault by writing to her from prison.
He’s been in custody since he was released from the hospital after he was shot. A jury convicted him in October.
Believes he survived shooting to ‘rehabilitate’
Washington apologized to the woman and her parents in court. He said he regretted “everything that happened” and the things he did during their relationship.
He said he believed that he survived being shot so he could “rehabilitate.” He referenced his two sons from a previous marriage who he said he hasn’t seen in years. He’s most recently been in the Rush City prison.
Washington’s attorney, Nico Ratkowski, requested a 20-year prison term, which he called “a very significant sentence.” He said every criminal sexual conduct charge is serious and he didn’t want to discount the victim’s experience in the case, though he said Washington’s actions appeared “to be less serious” than other cases.
“He wants to learn from this experience, he wants to do better moving forward,” Ratkowski said. “Hitting him with the maximum amount of time possible isn’t going to help him do that.”
Case was about power, prosecutor says
The prosecution wasn’t seeking “retribution,” but “mercy and peace” for the victim, Prokopowicz said in asking that Washington serve sentences for criminal sexual conduct and kidnapping back-to-back rather than at the same time, which is what Edwards sentenced him to do.
What Washington did “was not about sexual gratification,” but about power, Prokopowicz said. During the assault, he ripped out the woman’s insulin pump — what she uses to survive as a type 1 diabetic, the prosecutor said, adding that the woman’s brother died of complications from diabetes.
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“I think about how my parents almost had to bury another child,” the woman said earlier during her victim impact statement.
Washington was taken back into custody after sentencing. He has credit for more than four years and five months served.
Washington previously filed a federal lawsuit against the city of St. Paul and two officers over his shooting, and the lawsuit is ongoing. The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office reviewed the officer’s shooting and announced in 2021 he would not charge him.
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