20 to 40 years for sexual attacker

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

In a hearing that moved the admitted sexual assailant to tears and caused his victim to collapse, a Southwest Philadelphia man was sentenced yesterday to 20 to 40 years in prison.

"I'm not a predator!" Steve Wooden cried out to Common Pleas Court Judge Earl W. Trent Jr. "Any time I ever got in trouble, it was my drug use."

Wooden, 44, wept as he told the judge about a childhood of sexual abuse by a relative and a neighbor, and a crack cocaine habit that plagued him for more than a decade.

His victim, a 55-year-old Asian woman who does not speak English, could be heard weeping in the audience. She tried to stand to leave, let out a load moan, and collapsed into the arms of an interpreter and police detectives.

The woman was physically supported as she walked into an anteroom, and her moans from there could be heard through a closed door. Emergency personnel took her to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital for treatment.

The woman apparently hyperventilated and began to feel faint, Assistant District Attorney Bill Davis said. She was released to her son to go home, Davis said.

"She is a very proud woman, and in the eyes of her family she feels humiliated and violated by this crime," he said.

Wooden pleaded guilty in April to attempted rape and robbery in the Feb. 20, 2007, attack on the owner of a Northern Liberties dry-cleaning and tailor shop.

Davis said Wooden had entered the recently opened store and used his hand to pretend he was hiding a gun. After taking $100 from the woman, Davis said, Wooden forced her into the store's back area, pushed her to the floor, and tried to rape her.

Wooden's sentence was mandatory, and the judge elevated it to the maximum by making the two 10- to 20-year terms consecutive.

Wooden seemed especially upset because Trent had approved Davis' motion to label him a sexually violent predator. Under Pennsylvania's Megan's Law, that label means Wooden must register as a sex offender when he gets out of prison and attend lifelong sex-offender treatment. Authorities will notify neighbors and school officials where he lives.

Defense attorney Edward A. Conroy had argued that Wooden was not violent because he had not physically injured the victim.

Davis said Wooden had more than a dozen convictions on his record, including five robberies, four involving women. Rape charges in two previous arrests - one in Philadelphia and another in Delaware - were dismissed when the alleged victims chose not to proceed. Wooden was released from custody in Delaware in 2004.