Ralph Paul Ash, the Woodbine man accused of raping a 20-year-old woman and holding her hostage for 13 hours in southern Carroll County in July, will accept a plea arrangement next month that calls for a 50-year prison sentence, sources close to the case said yesterday.
Under the terms of the arrangement, Mr. Ash would plead guilty to first-degree rape and to a felony burglary charge in the hostage case and plead guilty to a second-degree sex offense charge from an unrelated case involving his wife, the sources said.
Mr. Ash would receive a life sentence for the rape charge, and concurrent 20-year sentences for each of the other two felonies. All but 50 years of the sentences would be suspended, the
sources said.
The deal was struck Monday morning during a meeting in Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns Jr.'s chambers attended by Assistant State's Attorney Kathi Hill and by Mr. Ash's lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Judson K. Larrimore.
Ms. Hill declined to comment on the deal, but confirmed its contents. Mr. Larrimore acknowledged that the meeting took place, but would neither confirm nor deny the details of the arrangement. Judge Burns declined to comment.
Mr. Ash is expected to accept the deal during a pretrial motions hearing Jan. 4.
If his case were to go to trial and he were convicted of all 26 charges against him, he could be sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus more than 100 years.
According to court records and testimony at two bail review hearings, Mr. Ash told police that his actions July 13 were part of a plan to kill his estranged wife.
"I told her I wanted to use her to get to my wife, to talk to m wife. I wanted to get my wife to come over so I could kill her," he told police, according to charging documents.
"The whole plan was to get my wife."
After being held at knifepoint for nearly 12 hours, the woman was able to flee when her abductor turned away to answer a phone call from a state police negotiator. He walked out of the woman's mobile home about 30 minutes later.
Mr. Ash and his wife, Linda Lee Ash, were in the midst of a legal battle. In the days before the abduction, Mrs. Ash filed for a
protective order from Mr. Ash, claiming that he beat her and the couple's two children.
The protective order was served on Mr. Ash the day before the hostage incident.
The allegations Mrs. Ash made formed the basis of a 17-count indictment returned against Mr. Ash on July 28. The second-degree sex offense charge to which Mr. Ash is expected to plead guilty arises from that indictment.
Mr. Ash, a 37-year-old general maintenance worker, has been charged with violent sex offenses at least twice previously, according to court records. In 1981, he was charged with second-degree rape and was sentenced to the time he had already spent in jail awaiting trial and placed on probation.
Two years later, he was found guilty but not criminally responsible on a charge of assault with intent to rape and was confined to the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center in Jessup for 2 1/2 years.
Mr. Ash has been held without bond in the Carroll County
Detention Center since his arrest last summer.