SUSSEX, Va. - A man charged in the slaying of a notorious child molester who was killed in his cell will not face the death penalty, court officials said.

The capital murder charge against Dewey Keith Venable has been reduced to first-degree murder for last year's slaying of Richard Alvin Ausley, the Sussex County Circuit Court clerk's office said.

Venable, 25, a violent felon, had been molested as a child and said that he had warned a corrections officer not to put him in the same cell as Ausley, who was 64.

In 1973, Ausley abducted a 13-year-old Portsmouth boy, chained him in an underground box and repeatedly sexually assaulted him.

Venable's lawyer, R. Clinton Clary, said Sussex County Commonwealth's Attorney Lyndia Person Ramsey no longer felt the case was appropriate for the death penalty.

Ramsey did not return calls seeking comment.

In Virginia, the premeditated murder of a prison inmate by another inmate is eligible to be prosecuted as a capital crime.

Clary said a trial date has been set for Feb. 27 and 28.

Ausley gained additional notoriety in recent years as the offender who prompted a Virginia law that allows the indefinite confinement of violent sexual predators for treatment once their prison terms are over.

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Information from: Richmond Times-Dispatch, http://www.timesdispatch.com