A former lawyer was sentenced to prison today after a bizarre series of events.

James William Woolley was found guilty by a jury last month on charges of robbery, kidnapping, and attempted murder in an incident that happened in January 2016. Thursday morning, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Clyde Jones sentenced Woolley to 20 years in prison for each count. The sentences will run concurrently.

Woolley, 52, was charged and convicted of first-degree robbery, first-degree kidnapping, and attempted murder after a man said Woolley and another person beat him in the basement of an east Birmingham home and threatened to cut off his genitals with bolt cutters.

According to court records and evidence revealed at trial, the victim was at his East Lake home on Jan. 25, 2016, when a woman he knew named Kimberly Murphy came over and asked him to come to her nearby house. The victim walked to her home, because he needed to get his piercing kit that he had left there.

When he got to Murphy's home, the victim said he was told his kit was in the basement. He walked down the basement stairs and illuminated the room, when he saw Woolley and another man--later identified as Monique Antoine Roscoe--standing in the basement in hazmat suits. Information in trial showed those outfits could have also been painters suits, or possibly a chicken suit.

The victim said he was ushered down the stairs at gunpoint and forced to sit in a chair. He said the ground was covered in plastic, and there were tools everywhere. The victim told police he was being questioned about $60 he supposedly owed, and said Woolley struck him over the head with a machete.

Then, the victim said, Woolley pulled out bolt cutters and asked the victim to put his hand on the table and choose a finger to be cut off. The victim kept repeating he didn't know anything about the debt, and Woolley then put the bolt cutters onto the victim's penis "in an attempt to, or a threat to, remove it," Birmingham police said.

While the victim was able to escape, Roscoe fired two shots at him while he ran out of the home. Roscoe pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery and second-degree attempted assault, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, split three years to serve.

Kimberly Murphy pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery.

Assistant Alabama Attorney Generals John Kachelman and John Hensley prosecuted the case; Wilson Myers, Lois Beasley-Carlisle, and Henry Lagman represented Woolley.

http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2018/04/former_lawyer_sentenced_to_pri.html

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3961131&forum_id=2#35928956)