SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – A Springfield man was sentenced to prison for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old child.
According to a news release from the Hampden District Attorney’s Office, 62-year-old Jay Aaron Smith was found guilty of four counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 by a Hampden Superior Court Jury. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison followed by five years of probation.
The child abuse likely occurred over several months from late 2020 through early 2021. Smith was an elder in the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Springfield. He served 10 years in a Georgia prison for rape in the late 1980s and was a registered level 3 sex offender in Massachusetts at the time of the offenses.
At the time of the guilty verdict, Hampden District Attorney Anthony D. Gulluni stated, “I am deeply grateful to the brave survivor for bringing this abuser to the light of justice. Her courage and strength keeps other children safe from this predator. I thank the survivor, the jury, detectives with the Springfield Police Department, and Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Vasiliades, who is assigned to my office’s Special Victim’s Unit, for her skillful prosecution of this case.”
The Commonwealth was represented by Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Vasiliades.
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