NH convict in shamed girl's rape gets 15-30 years
APBy LYNNE TUOHY - Associated Press | AP – 20 mins ago
NH convict in shamed girl's rape gets 15-30 years - Yahoo! News
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — The 15-year-old New Hampshire girl was pregnant, scared and humiliated when she was made to stand before her Baptist church congregation 14 years ago and apologize for her immorality.
Tuesday, it was a former church member's turn to apologize before he was sentenced to 15-30 years in prison for forcible rape.
Ernest Willis, 52, of Gilford said he was "sorry and ashamed for this thoughtless act of sexual misconduct." But in his lengthy statement he did not admit he forcibly raped the girl.
Listening telephone from Arizona, victim Tina Anderson said she was "thrilled" with the sentence.
"It's a huge amount of vindication for me," Anderson, now 29, told The Associated Press. "I was never really believed, no matter how many times I said it was not consensual. Now it's been proven in a court of law that he's guilty and he's been given a significant sentence."
The AP typically does not identify victims of sexual assault, but Anderson asked that her name be used and has given numerous media interviews.
Willis, wearing bright orange prison garb and shackled at the ankles, also apologized to his ex-wife and their children for the embarrassment and financial ruin they've suffered and to Concord's Trinity Baptist Church for the ridicule his case has wrought.
The case remained unsolved for years because Concord police could not locate the teen. Unbeknownst to them, the pastor of Trinity Baptist Church helped ship the girl to Colorado, with her mother's consent, to live with a Baptist couple she did not know and put her infant daughter up for adoption.
Police located Anderson last year after a former church member posted to a blog decrying the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement. The post described Anderson's church discipline session at Trinity Baptist. Willis was arrested in May 2010.
Anderson said Tuesday she would have loved to see others involved in her case held accountable, but is satisfied with Willis's punishment.
In imposing the sentence, Merrimack Superior Court Judge Larry Smukler said Willis betrayed the trust the girl placed in him and robbed her of her childhood. Willis faced up to 54 years in prison on convictions for statutory rape and aggravated felonious sex assault.
A jury in May convicted Willis of raping the girl twice in 1997 — once while he was giving her driving lessons and weeks later at her Concord home. His lawyers say he will appeal those convictions.
The teen babysat Willis's children and, a prosecutor said Tuesday, considered him a father figure.
"Her trust and admiration were repaid with violence and rape," prosecutor Wayne Coull told the judge.
Coull said the most aggravating factor of all was Willis's reaction upon learning the teen was pregnant.
"He offered to punch her in the stomach so hard as to cause a miscarriage," Coull said. "For the defendant to be so cruel and selfish as to recommend such actions upon a child is just outrageous."
Before his trial in May, Willis pleaded guilty to one count of statutory rape. He maintained they had consensual sex on one occasion only, but acknowledged the girl was under the legal age of consent.
Willis remained stoic as the judge sent him to prison for a minimum of 15 years.
"This particular day is a day for justice for the victim," Smukler told him, saying Willis betrayed the trust of a defenseless teenager.
The judge stressed to Willis that he was not sentencing him for the actions of Trinity Baptist Church and then pastor Chuck Phelps.
Anderson told the AP she can never purge from her mind the horror and humiliation of being made to apologize to the congregation.
"It will never go away," Anderson said. "And that's not necessarily a bad thing because it helps me to be more compassionate to others. I would love to be able to use my trauma, my pain, to help others."
Anderson listened to the sentencing from the home of a victim advocate in Arizona. She did not address the court. But in a statement she delivered after Willis was convicted she said he "destroyed the person I was ... and filled me with shame and guilt."
She said it was heartbreaking to put her daughter up for adoption and that she misses her every day.
"When he decided that his sexual gratification was the most important thing in his life, he shattered mine," she said.
Willis, a divorced father of four, remained free on bail until his May 27 conviction. Tuesday he was taken to the state prison in Concord to begin serving his sentence.
To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway
Over here the mother would at the very least have lost custody over the girl for that.Originally Posted by troung
What's not really clear from the article is whether the girl willingly put her daughter up for adoption. Is it legal in the USA / in Colorado if she didn't?
What a sad story... What a scum - I hope the general population gives him a taste of his own medicine.
"If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees.
If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children." -- Confucius
She was probalby forced to sign papers so no probalby not. But, after 14 years the best interests of the (adopted) child mean the chance of getting adoption reversed are almost nil. She might be able to get visitation if she can prove she was under duress when she signed.
Indeed.
Does she really have to prove she was under duress? Raped and forced to leave her town, have her child adopted...yes I think she was under duress.
Do rapists get bad treatment in prison? I do hope so, never been there so I don't know.
I find nothing of her parents standing by her, believing her, or willing to except the child. They (mother) allowed their daughter to be shipped-out of town like a bad smell to live with total strangers. It's a disturbing case where nobody ends up the winner. Rapist in jail..good outcome for the victim but who sadly has a life sentence of never having her child in her life.
If its like the UK, rapists and pedophiles etc are segregated away from 'main stream' prisoners who I am sure would gladly show them the errors of their ways. My way would be at the end of a rope but that's me being a softy. In a bad mood I would suggest molten lead poured into and onto places where lead is not meant to go
Dave, good point on the parents. What kind of person would do that to their own little girl?
RC I think a lot to do with it was the Trinity Baptist Church. They persuaded the mother to abandon, and even helped ship the girl to Colorado which was a travesty. Maybe they held too much sway on the people at that time. Are there more skeletons to be found in that church's wardrobe, are they hiding other atrocities of this nature?
They will be put in P.C. or protective custody. To put them in gen pop or the general prison population would lead to this person being passed from cell to cell while the honest crooks please themselves.
I can't see anything wrong with a gentlemanly queue
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
1Likes
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
Share this thread with friends: