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Missouri Man Who Pleaded Guilty To Molesting 11-Year-Old Girl Gets Probation [View all]
A Missouri man who pleaded guilty to molesting an 11-year-old girl has evaded jail time, instead getting just five years of supervised probation.
Joseph Robert Meili, 22, was sentenced in Greene County Court on Friday after pleading guilty in March to third-degree child molestation as part of a plea deal.
In exchange for his guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to dismiss the child kidnapping and first-degree statutory rape charges he also faced.
Under Missouri law, third-degree child molestation is considered a class C felony punishable by up to three to 10 years in prison or a shorter term coupled with a $10,000 fine.
Prosecutors recommended Meili serve 120 days in a sex offender treatment program and up to seven years in prison. But Judge Calvin R. Holden sentenced him to just five years of supervised probation.'
...
It’s not uncommon for child molestation and statutory rape cases of this nature in Greene County to result in probation for the offender rather than prison time, both Pierson and Fax said.
Earlier on Friday, Fax appeared in court for the sentencing of another confessed child abuser: Avery Genovese of Bolivar, who was 21 years old when he was charged with the statutory rape and statutory sodomy of a 12-year-old girl he met online.
He pleaded guilty to both charges in January. Holden sentenced him to five years of supervised probation on Friday.
“The victim’s family was there and they were literally just crying,” Fax said.
Holden has faced backlash in the past for handing down light sentences to child molesters. In 2016, he sentenced a 24-year-old man convicted of sexually abusing an 8-year-old child he was babysitting to 30 days in jail and five years of probation. The decision sparked a Change.org petition calling for Holden’s removal from the bench, which garnered hundreds of signatures.
Holden outraged community members again in February after he sentenced a twice-convicted rapist to five years of supervised probation.
Beau Maurice Gormley, 33, of Republic, received the sentence after raping a woman a month into his probation, which he’d received for previously committing statutory rape against a 16-year-old employee who worked at a restaurant he managed.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/missouri-man-probation-molestation_n_5d07bf13e4b03eb73ef844d4
Joseph Robert Meili, 22, was sentenced in Greene County Court on Friday after pleading guilty in March to third-degree child molestation as part of a plea deal.
In exchange for his guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to dismiss the child kidnapping and first-degree statutory rape charges he also faced.
Under Missouri law, third-degree child molestation is considered a class C felony punishable by up to three to 10 years in prison or a shorter term coupled with a $10,000 fine.
Prosecutors recommended Meili serve 120 days in a sex offender treatment program and up to seven years in prison. But Judge Calvin R. Holden sentenced him to just five years of supervised probation.'
...
It’s not uncommon for child molestation and statutory rape cases of this nature in Greene County to result in probation for the offender rather than prison time, both Pierson and Fax said.
Earlier on Friday, Fax appeared in court for the sentencing of another confessed child abuser: Avery Genovese of Bolivar, who was 21 years old when he was charged with the statutory rape and statutory sodomy of a 12-year-old girl he met online.
He pleaded guilty to both charges in January. Holden sentenced him to five years of supervised probation on Friday.
“The victim’s family was there and they were literally just crying,” Fax said.
Holden has faced backlash in the past for handing down light sentences to child molesters. In 2016, he sentenced a 24-year-old man convicted of sexually abusing an 8-year-old child he was babysitting to 30 days in jail and five years of probation. The decision sparked a Change.org petition calling for Holden’s removal from the bench, which garnered hundreds of signatures.
Holden outraged community members again in February after he sentenced a twice-convicted rapist to five years of supervised probation.
Beau Maurice Gormley, 33, of Republic, received the sentence after raping a woman a month into his probation, which he’d received for previously committing statutory rape against a 16-year-old employee who worked at a restaurant he managed.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/missouri-man-probation-molestation_n_5d07bf13e4b03eb73ef844d4
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