Ex-trust officer likely to spend life imprisoned

6/25/2014

A 66-year-old former Toledo bank officer who has been convicted of sex crimes in three states likely will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Virgil C. Satchwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence in Florida for lewd or lascivious molestation of a victim under 12, entered Alford pleas Tuesday in Lucas County Common Pleas Court to rape and gross sexual imposition for engaging in sexual conduct with an 8-year-old girl in 2011.

In an Alford plea, a defendant does not admit guilt, but acknowledges evidence is sufficient for a conviction that could result in a more severe sentence.

Judge Stacy Cook found him guilty and sentenced him to 16 years in prison.

She ordered that the Lucas County sentence be served after his Florida prison term is completed.

Satchwell, who was classified as a Tier III sex offender in Lucas County, was first convicted of a sex crime in 1996 in federal court in Michigan and served just over a year in prison.

According to a 1995 article in The Blade, he was arrested in December, 1995 after making arrangements over the telephone to meet who he thought was a young girl for sex in Michigan.

The girl, who was actually a Grand Rapids, Mich., police detective, told him on taped phone conversations that she would turn 15 in January.

Satchwell, who at the time was 47 and a trust officer with Society Bank, told the girl he looked like actor Richard Gere.

He was arrested at a restaurant outside Grand Rapids, Mich.

Jennifer Lambdin, an assistant Lucas County prosecutor who handled the most recent case, said that based on Satchwell’s age and the two sentences he must serve, she does not expect he will ever get out of prison.

Contact Jennifer Feehan at: jfeehan@theblade.com or 419-213-2134.