Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project lawyers are working through this weekend to prepare a request of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell for a conditional pardon for Johnathon Montgomery, 26. Montgomery has served four years in prison following his 2008 conviction of sexual assault. The crime allegedly happened eight years earlier, in 2000, when Montgomery was 14 and the victim was 10. Montgomery was convicted on the testimony of the victim who was 17 at the time she raised the accusation. Now 22, Elizabeth Coast has recanted her testimony and admitted the assault never happened.
Coast says she made up the assault as a defense and explanation to her parents who discovered her looking at sexually explicit sites on the Internet. The Daily Press first reported on this case. This ABC report also indicates that Coast is being charged with perjury for the false accusation. Continue reading
