Recordpub.com - Sex with a 5-year-old nets 90 days Children are victims in 2 separate Portage cases

By Dave O’Brien
Record-Courier staff writer
An Akron man will spend two more weeks in the Portage County jail and became a registered Tier II sex offender after he was sentenced Monday in Portage County Common Pleas Court on a charge that he had sexual contact with a 5-year-old child in July.
Jeffrey Clay, 18, was sentenced by Judge Laurie Pittman to 90 days in jail for gross sexual imposition, a third-degree felony. He was given credit for 76 days already served, as well as an additional 12 months intensive probation and 36 months basic probation.
Pittman ordered Clay be labeled a Tier II sex offender, meaning he will have to verify his address in person with his local law enforcement agency every 180 days for the next 25 years.
Clay also was ordered to undergo sex offender counseling with Summit Psychological Services, fined $300 plus court costs and ordered not to have any contact with the victim or victim’s family as well as find full-time employment within six months, Pittman said.
Clay was charged Sept. 22 based on a July 23 incident in Mantua. According to Mantua police, he had sexual contact with a child victim, whom he knew. The child’s parents reported the incident to police after the child told them what happened. Clay had been living in Mantua near the child’s family at the time of the incident, but moved shortly afterward.
“Obviously he has taken responsibility for his actions,” Assistant Portage County Public Defender John Laczko said. The charge was Clay’s first felony offense, he added.
Assistant Portage County Prosecutor Eric Finnegan said the state, as part of Clay’s guilty plea, would not contest community control sanctions as long as Clay received sex offender counseling.
Given the opportunity to speak in court, Clay said he had “done some things to not the best of my ability.”
“I regret the most recent turn of events, and I am willing to do anything offered to me in probation,” he said.
Clay had faced a possible sentence of 18 months in prison and $5,000 in fines. If he violates any conditions of his sentence, he will be ordered to serve a full 18 months in jail, Pittman said.
In another case, a Ravenna Township man pleaded guilty Monday in Portage County Common Pleas Court in Ravenna to having sexual contact with a child under the age of 13.
Jack V. Jeffries, of 5409 McCormick Road, pleaded guilty to one count of a Sept. 8 Portage County grand jury indictment alleging gross sexual imposition, a third-degree felony.
A second count of the indictment alleging gross sexual imposition, also a third-degree felony, was dismissed on a motion by the Portage County Prosecutor’s Office based on a plea agreement. According to the indictment, the alleged offenses occurred between Jan. 1, 1999 and Jan. 1, 2003 when the victim, now a teenager, was under the age of 13.
Jeffries, who was represented by the Portage County Public Defender’s Office, also will be labeled a Tier II sex offender at sentencing, meaning he must verify his address in person every 180 days for the next 25 years with local law enforcement.
Currently free on a $70,000 personal recognizance bond and on electronically-monitored house arrest, Jeffries faces up to five years in prison and $10,000 in fines at sentencing. A sentencing date has not been set.

11.	Posted by BrimfieldCouple December 9, 2009
	This sickens me. I know a young man who is now 24 and when he was 19 he was at a party and ended up having consensual sex with a girl who turned out to only be 14. He didn't know she was fourteen and the only reason the police where involved was this fourteen year old wanted to know who the father of her baby was. Police had to DNA test EIGHT men (7 was over 18) as possible fathers. This guys punishment for having sex with a five year old is less than what the guy I know received. There needs to be a book that says what someone is punished. You do this crime and it equals this punishment. It doesn't matter what who your judge is or who your attorney is. There is a serious problem with someone who can have sexual contact with a five year old. I don't condone what my friend did but what the hell was Pittman thinking this was a child.