Stephens City man sentenced to two months in jail for vape shop incident

This surveillance image provided by the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office shows

This surveillance image provided by the Frederick County Sheriff's Office shows a man who squirted an unkown substance on a vape shop employee in Stephens City on Feb. 26. Joshua James West, 40, received a 12-month sentence with 10 months suspended for the incident, according to court documents

A Stephens City man charged with sexual battery after an incident in a Frederick County vape shop was sentenced to two months in jail on May 23, according to online court information.

Joshua James West, 40, appeared in Frederick County General District Court for a class 1 misdemeanor, and, according to disposition information, he received a 12-month sentence with 10 months suspended.

The Winchester Star previously reported that West was arrested in March after cameras at the Stephens City Smoke Hub captured a male customer using a "device" to spray a female employee with an unknown substance while her back was turned on Feb. 26.

West reportedly sprayed the substance on the employee's back and pants. Law enforcement officials told The Star that West was charged after an investigation.

On the day the incident occurred, West entered the Smoke Hub at 255 Fairfax Pike and asked for some Delta 8 disposable vape pens, video from store surveillance cameras showed. The employee turned to get the items from a shelf when the man reportedly began to squirt the unknown substance.

The employee told The Winchester Star shortly after the incident that the man used a syringe to spray her three times.

"It was 100 percent a syringe," she said, adding the substance smelled to her like male bodily fluids and chemicals.

"I felt him spray me the third time. I called him out on it, he denied it, and then I kicked him out of the store. I was not aware that he sprayed me three times until I watched the video," she said. "I just kicked him out."

A description of the suspect and the incident, along with a surveillance image of West, was posted on the Sheriff's Office's Facebook page prior to his arrest.

West will have two years of unsupervised probation, the court's database shows.

— Contact Cormac Dodd at [email protected]

That is the way our Local Government rolls. Way overpaid to not do their jobs.

To Chupacabra

Because that is job security for those who are supposed to be protecting the innocent law abiding citizen. If law enforcement officers actually arrested all criminals and didn't show favoritism to certain individuals and if prosecutors actually prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and if judges applied the maximum sentence allowed then the people in charge would be out of work and the honest tax paying citizen would have their freedoms restored.

They don't want their town to be like Mayberry. They keep buying gallons of NARCAN to keep the drug problem in our community. They claim other crimes are civil when in fact they are criminal which puts the burden on the individual instead of on law enforcement where it belongs.

All one has to do is check the daily police logs to see the same problems happening over and over with no end in sight because those put in place to correct the problem don't want to. They have to make others think that they need more money when in fact they don't.

When officers are told a crime is being committed or when a crime usually will occur and they don't even show up, or if they show up and witness the actual crime themselves and then claim that there is nothing they can do because of ___ fill in the blank with whatever excuse you like, then that's a problem.

How many innocent law abiding citizens have no rights in the county because of the "lack of enthusiasm" on the part of law enforcement, prosecutors, judges?

There are some good officers, don't get me wrong, but when leadership tells those officers not to get involved or that they don't arrest so and so because they're a "friend" or whatever other reason, then the rights of the innocent are not protected.

It's no wonder that some people feel the need to actually take the law into their own hands. Unfortunately some do, but others are forced to suffer through constant harassment, because that's what it is, harassment, when law enforcement and prosecutors refuse to punish the criminals.

How many people have to constantly deal with unlicensed animals using their yard for their own personal dumping ground? How many people have to deal with people dumping their trash/debris on their property? How many people have to listen to their neighbors blast music all hours of the day and night or have to listen to loud vehicles left to idle for up to a half hour at a time? How many people have to deal with constant trespassing? And the list goes on. Are all of these things crimes? Yes. Do some people get arrested for committing these crimes? Yes. Do ALL people get arrested for committing these crimes? NO. Even where there is proof of the crime, some people are not arrested, never prosecuted and never held accountable.

There is an election coming up. People need to see that this type of thing has been going on for a long time now. They can either vote to keep it going as it is, or they can vote for change.

@B Weller - [thumbup] Optics are everything, regardless of how it actually affects people...

Why are we suspending sentences of criminals found guilty in a court of law?

Yawn

I would like an answer to that also. They give them twenty years for an offense and suspend nineteen of them. It doesn't make sense.

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