Man guilty of assault, kidnapping at hotel
12.12.2011, 01:01
A Myrtle Beach man pleaded guilty to kidnapping and assault charges and was sentenced to 21 years in prison.
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Circuit Judge Ed Cottingham sentenced John Thomas Bragg on Monday for the charges stemming from a 2000 incident at Coral Reef hotel on Ocean Boulevard.
Bragg was given six sentences that will be served at the same time. Cottingham sentenced Bragg to 21 years for kidnapping, 20 years each for first-degree criminal sexual conduct and two counts of assault and battery with intent to kill.
He also was sentenced to 10 years for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and five years for possession of crack cocaine.
During his hearing, Bragg admitted he tied up and sexually assaulted a former girlfriend in a room at the hotel, and tried to kill their toddler.
Police were called to the hotel when passersby saw Bragg pull the woman into a room by her hair and heard her scream, prosecutors said.
Bragg fled before police arrived. He was arrested in 2002 in Georgia on drug and weapons charges, and he was convicted of those charges in federal court last year, prosecutors said. He currently is serving a 15-year-prison sentence that began last fall.
This week's sentences will run concurrent with his federal sentence.