WARNING: The Court's opinion includes graphic details of the sexual assault, summarized below. If you are easily offended by such details, you should leave now.
Today, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the guilty verdict and sentencing of a Webster County man convicted of first degree sexual abuse and sexual abuse by a parent.
According to the opinion of the Court, a father was accused of molesting his seven year old child. The primary evidence against the father was his own statements that he gave to investigating State Police officers. In those statements, the father admitted to masturbating in bed while the child was also in his bed, and/or that he was teaching the child how to masturabate. The State also presented the testimony of a psychologist who said the child exhibited signs of sexual abuse.
The father testified that the police beat the statements out of him. He claimed he was hit in the eye when he would not give a statement to police. He said his booking photo would show his swollen shut eye, but at the trial the booking photo showed no such thing.
After the jury convicted the father of the two crimes, he was sentenced to concurrent terms of 5 to 25 years and 10 to 20 years, for an effective sentence of 10 to 25 years.
The Supreme Court found no error in the trial, in the jury's verdict, or in the sentence handed down by the Circuit Judge.
The full text of the Court's opinion can be found at this link:
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