COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Judges Willis, Bray and Annunziata 

Argued at Norfolk, Virginia 

WILLIAM ANTHONY BOOKER 

 MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY 

v. Record No. 1603-98-1 JUDGE RICHARD S. BRAY 

 AUGUST 3, 1999 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF HAMPTON 

Christopher W. Hutton, Judge 

 Charles E. Haden for appellant. 

 Jeffrey S. Shapiro, Assistant Attorney 

General (Mark L. Earley, Attorney General, on 

brief), for appellee. 

William Anthony Booker (defendant) was convicted in a bench 

trial of rape, two counts of inanimate object penetration and 

four counts of forcible sodomy.1 On appeal, defendant complains 

that the trial court erroneously (1) denied his motion to 

restrict the Commonwealth’s evidence to offenses committed on 

dates specified in response to a bill of particulars, (2) 

admitted hearsay evidence, and (3) found the evidence sufficient 

to support the convictions. Finding no error, we affirm the 

trial court. 

 

* Pursuant to Code § 17.1-413, recodifying Code 

§ 17-116.010, this opinion is not designated for publication.

1

 Defendant’s forcible sodomy convictions are not subject of 

this appeal. 
The parties are fully conversant with the record, and this 

memorandum opinion recites only those facts necessary to a 

disposition of the appeal. 

I. 

Defendant first contends that he did not have “clear 

notification of the offense with which he was charged” because 

the trial court failed to limit the Commonwealth’s proof to 

offense dates specified in response to the bill of particulars. 

It is uncontroverted that the initial indictments charging 

defendant with the commission of the subject offenses, “on or 

about June 11 and June 23,” 1996, were subsequently amended to 

allege offense dates, “on or about June 1 - 30, 1996.” In 

response to defendant’s bill of particulars, the Commonwealth 

specified that the crimes occurred “on or about” June 11 and 

June 23, 1996. The trial court, however, denied defendant’s 

pretrial motion to limit the Commonwealth’s evidence to offenses 

committed on the disputed dates. 

During trial, the victim testified that the offenses 

occurred while she was in the second grade at school,2 “in the 

nighttime when [her mother] was at work,” adding, “I think it 

was June . . . summertime.” The victim reported the incidents 

to her mother on June 28, 1996, and recalled that the most 

recent had occurred within the month. 

 2

 She also testified that school ended for summer recess on 

“the 20th of June.” 

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Defendant moved to strike the evidence both at the 

conclusion of the Commonwealth’s case and at the conclusion of 

the trial, arguing that the evidence did not establish that the 

offenses occurred on the dates specified in response to his bill 

of particulars. In denying the motion, the trial court noted: 

We know that these events occurred while 

[the victim] was in second grade, . . . from 

September of 1995, through June of ‘96. And 

. . . while the mother worked at Wendy’s, 

which was October of ‘95, until sometime 

after the complaint. There was indication 

that they occurred during a summer month, of 

which June is at least a portion. There was 

some indication . . . from the witness that 

it actually did occur in June. So that 

narrows it down. And, additionally, we have 

the response that while these events 

occurred a long time before the complaint 

was made, that was qualified . . . to within 

a month. Based on the Court's feeling about 

the credibility of the [victim] . . ., and 

. . . all of those things together and 

narrowing the timeline, the Court is 

convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that 

these events did occur within the time 

period alleged in the indictment . . . . 

Code § 19.2-220 provides, in pertinent part, that an 

“indictment . . . shall be a plain, concise and definite written 

statement, . . . (4) reciting that the accused committed the 

offense on or about a certain date.” “No indictment or other 

accusation shall be quashed or deemed invalid: . . . (6) For 

omitting to state, or stating imperfectly, the time at which the 

offense was committed when time is not the essence of the 

offense.” Code § 19.2-226; see Marlowe v. Commonwealth, 2 Va. 

App. 619, 622, 347 S.E.2d 167, 169 (1986). Thus, “the use of 

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the term ‘on or about’ in the indictment [for such offenses] is 

consistent” with statute, Marlowe, 2 Va. App. at 625, 347 S.E.2d 

at 171, and “the Commonwealth may . . . prove a date other than 

that alleged, if the date is not of the essence of the offense 

or not shown to be significant.” Id. at 622, 347 S.E.2d at 169 

(citations omitted); see Code § 19.2-226(6). 

 Code § 19.2-230 permits the trial court to “direct the 

filing of a bill of particulars at any time before trial.” Code 

§ 19.2-230. “‘The purpose of a bill of particulars is to state 

sufficient facts regarding the crime to inform an accused in 

advance of the offense for which he is to be tried. He is 

entitled to no more.’” Swisher v. Commonwealth, 256 Va. 471, 

480, 506 S.E.2d 763, 768 (1998) (citations omitted). The bill 

is relief available to an accused, at the discretion of the 

court, to supplement an indictment which fails to “‘fully and 

clearly set forth all the material elements of the offense,’” 

but not “to expand the scope of discovery in a criminal case.” 

Sims v. Commonwealth, 28 Va. App. 611, 619-20, 507 S.E.2d 648, 

652-53 (1998) (citations omitted). Hence, the import of time to 

an offense ordinarily is of no greater significance in a bill of 

particulars than in an indictment. 

 Here, time was not an element of the offenses, and both the 

indictments and the Commonwealth’s response to the bill of 

particulars sufficiently informed defendant of the relevant 

offense dates. Moreover, the evidence supports the trial 

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court’s finding that the crimes occurred in June, 1996, clearly 

within the period embraced both in the indictments and the 

response. Hence, the trial court properly denied defendant’s 

motion to limit the Commonwealth’s proof and correctly overruled 

his later motions to strike. 

II. 

 Defendant next contends that the trial court erroneously 

permitted witnesses to recount the victim’s statements relative 

to the subject offenses. He argues that such testimony was 

inadmissible hearsay, because “the . . . statements were not an 

outcry and were not recent.” 

 Code § 19.2-268.2 provides that, “in any prosecution for 

criminal sexual assault . . ., the fact that the person injured 

made complaint of the offense recently after commission of the 

offense is admissible, not as independent evidence of the 

offense, but for the purpose of corroborating the testimony of 

the complaining witness.” “However, only the fact of the 

complaint and not the details given therein may be admitted, but 

the scope of admission rests with the sound discretion of the 

trial court.” Woodard v. Commonwealth, 19 Va. App. 24, 27, 448 

S.E.2d 328, 330 (1994) (citations omitted). 

 The “‘only time requirement is that the complaint have been 

made without delay which is unexplained or is inconsistent with 

the occurrence of the offense.’” Id. (citations omitted). “The 

initial determination of timeliness under the recent complaint 

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rule is committed to the sound discretion of the trial court, 

and thereafter, timeliness is a matter for the trier of fact to 

consider in weighing the evidence.” Id. (citations omitted). 

 Here, the victim reported to her mother on June 28, 1996, 

that defendant “had been touching her on her private parts.” 

She was immediately taken to the emergency room and examined by 

a pediatrician, who noted that the victim “made a specific 

complaint, a red and yellow cord had been put in her private 

parts, and that . . . [defendant] placed his penis in her 

private part.” At trial, the victim testified that she did not 

immediately report the incidents to her mother because defendant 

“threatened [her] not to tell nobody . . . [and] he said if 

[she] tell anybody, something bad was going to happen.” Thus, 

the content of the complaint was clearly embraced by the 

statute, and the delayed “outcry” explained by a “common 

circumstance[] surrounding sexual assault on minors[,] . . . 

threat of further harm from the assailant.” Woodard, 19 Va. 

App. at 28, 448 S.E.2d at 330. Accordingly, the court properly 

admitted the statements into evidence. 

III. 

 Finally, defendant argues that the evidence was 

insufficient to establish penetration, an indispensable element 

of the subject crimes. When the sufficiency of the evidence is 

challenged on appeal, we must review the evidence in the light 

most favorable to the Commonwealth, and will disturb a verdict 

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only if plainly wrong or without evidence to support it. See

Code § 8.01-680; Martin v. Commonwealth, 4 Va. App. 438, 443, 

358 S.E.2d 415, 418 (1987). The credibility of the witnesses, 

the weight accorded testimony, and the inferences to be drawn 

from proven facts are matters to be determined by the fact 

finder. See Long v. Commonwealth, 8 Va. App. 194, 199, 379 

S.E.2d 473, 476 (1989). 

 The victim testified that defendant “stuck his private 

parts in my private part.” Upon further questioning, she 

specified that defendant “st[u]ck his penis . . . [i]n my 

vagina,” and “it hurted . . . felt like something was in it.” 

She recalled that defendant “stuck [a] sponge curler in [her] 

butthole,” explaining to her that he was “seeing how deep [it] 

is.” She was certain that defendant “was able to put it in 

. . . [b]ecause [she] felt it . . . [and] it was hurting real 

bad.” The victim also testified that defendant “took [his 

index] finger, and he stuck that in [her] butthole.” She was 

aware “it was actually going in . . . [b]ecause [she] felt the 

nail, and it felt like . . . [she] had to use the bathroom.” 

Similarly, when defendant “stuck [a VCR cord] in [the victim’s] 

vagina,” she “felt it” “going inside,” and “[i]t hurted.” 

 “Under settled principles of law, the child’s testimony 

alone, if believed by the [fact finder], [is] sufficient to 

support [defendant’s] conviction, even in the absence of 

corroborating physical or testimonial evidence.” Love v. 

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Commonwealth, 18 Va. App. 84, 90, 441 S.E.2d 709, 713 (1994) 

(citations omitted). The penetration necessary to establish 

object sexual penetration and rape, “need be only slight.” Jett 

v. Commonwealth, 29 Va. App. 190, 194, 510 S.E.2d 747, 749 

(1998) (en banc) (citations and internal quotations omitted). 

Contrary to defendant’s contention, such evidence in the instant 

record was not rendered incredible either by the testimony of 

physicians or human experience. Clearly, therefore, the 

testimony of the victim, together with other evidence, was 

sufficient to establish the requisite penetration. 

 Accordingly, we affirm the convictions. 

 Affirmed.

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