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Virginia rape victim learns attacker faces parole hearing months after sentencing

24-year sentence imposed in September is revisable because crimes predate the state's 1995 abolition of parole, judicial sentence turns out to be opening bid before an unelected board

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Virginia rape survivor outraged that attacker is already up for parole Virginia rape survivor outraged that attacker is already up for parole foxnews.com
Virginia rape survivor Amanda Virginia rape survivor Amanda foxnews.com
Anthony Favors was sentenced to 24 years in prison for raping a woman in 1992 Anthony Favors was sentenced to 24 years in prison for raping a woman in 1992 foxnews.com
Navy veteran Amanda Navy veteran Amanda foxnews.com
Amanda with her father Amanda with her father foxnews.com

A Navy veteran who finally saw her attacker sentenced in September has learned he may get a parole hearing within months, Fox News reports. The rape occurred in 1992 at her Norfolk apartment; the case stayed unsolved for 33 years until DNA evidence in 2024 linked it to a convicted rapist already serving time.

Anthony Favors, 57, took a plea deal for two counts of rape in exchange for a 24-year sentence — twelve years per count, consecutive, imposed by Norfolk Judge Everett A. Martin Jr. in September 2025. Weeks later the victim, identified as Amy, received an automated VINE text notification that the Virginia Parole Board planned to review Favors for possible release. "I finally get some sort of closure and justice," she told Fox News. "And then I get a text. Nobody yet has told me how he's even eligible for parole."

The mechanics are administrative, not exceptional. Favors was serving a 60-year sentence for a separate March 1992 rape when the DNA hit connected him to Amy's case. Because both offenses predate January 1, 1995, Virginia's old sentencing laws apply, and the parole board abolished for later offenders can still consider him — a door legally opened because the board had repeatedly reviewed, and never granted, his release on the earlier conviction. Norfolk Commonwealth's Attorney Ramin Fatehi confirmed the discretionary hearing is likely within months while estimating slim to zero chance of actual release.

The gap is structural. The sentence announced in court is a document drafted for a board the victim never elected and the judge does not control, and the procedural trigger — prior parole consideration on an unrelated conviction — operates independently of anything that happened at the September hearing. Advocacy groups argue the arrangement forces victims to relive trauma on a schedule set by paperwork. Amy, who reported to her ship's shift immediately after an assault that lasted hours and still checks her locks in cycles, put it more simply: "Where is my justice?"