RICHMOND — A sex offender from Mississippi has been sent to prison for sexually motivated attacks on joggers near a Richmond shoreline, court records show.
Ronald Bryant, 56, pleaded no contest to assault and two counts of false imprisonment and was sentenced in late December to four years behind bars. He is now in North Kern State Prison, records show.
Bryant was the man police identified as responsible for attacks on women who were all jogging in the same area, during the summer of 2025. All the incidents occurred near the Point Richmond tunnel, and all involved him either groping the victims or attempting to pull off their clothes, police said.
On July 15, Bryant attacked a woman near the tunnel, attempting to pull her clothing off of her and crushing her with his body weight as she screamed for help. A passing motorist observed the commotion, stopped his car and accosted Bryant, who ran off, police said. The woman later told authorities she believed he would have raped her if the motorist hadn’t intervened.
Police took DNA samples from the woman’s clothing and matched it to Bryant less than a month after that attack, court records show.
Bryant has three sex convictions — for statutory rape in 2001, assault with intent to ravish in 2010 and disturbing the peace in 2018 — all in Mississippi. Police said in court filings the 2018 conviction involved Bryant attacking and groping a “female jogger.”
Bryant received credit for time spent in jail between his August 2025 arrest and the plea deal finalized four months later, records show. In exchange for his no contest pleas to the three felonies, prosecutors dropped six other related criminal charges against him.
Police say that at the time of the spree, Bryant was living with a relative on 6th Street in Richmond, a little less than two miles from where the attacks occurred.