Recordpub.com - Sex with boy, 11, nets jail time for woman

By Dave O’Brien

Record-Courier staff writer

A 19-year-old, female registered sex offender was ordered to serve 180 days in the Portage County jail — with credit for time served since her August 2009 arrest — and placed on five years’ probation for having sexual contact with an 11-year-old boy in June 2009.

However, Portage County Common Pleas Judge Laurie Pittman was faced Monday with a difficult question: Where to put Shawna A. Conn, convicted of having sexual contact with an 11-year-old boy last summer, where she can have no contact with children and live by the terms of her sex offender registration?

Conn, who cannot live with relatives when children are present, has the mental capacity of a 10- or 11-year-old, according to her attorney.

The former Shalersville resident pleaded guilty in January to one count of gross sexual imposition, a fourth-degree felony. She had already been labeled a Tier I sexual offender by a Trumbull County court at the time of the Portage County offense, based on a prior conviction.

Beside the jail term, Pittman ordered Conn to serve 12 months on intensive supervised probation and 48 months on standard probation. She will be labeled a Tier II sexual offender based on the new conviction, meaning she will have to verify her address with the sheriff’s office in her county of residence every 180 days for 25 years.

Conn had faced a maximum prison term of 18 months, but the Portage County Prosecutor’s Office had agreed not to oppose probation at sentencing as long as Conn received counseling.

Assistant Portage County Public Defender Leonard Hazelett told Pittman the case has caused him trouble from the beginning, especially after Conn was named ineligible for housing at a Twinsburg treatment facility because of financial reasons.

“My concern is not only for her but the victims in the matter,” Hazelett told Pittman. “Her offenses involved children, and basically in my mind she is a child in a woman’s body.”

Conn has a high school education, but Hazelett said it is “pretty obvious it was passing her on from grade to grade to grade.”

Family friends in Muskingum County have offered to take Conn in after her release from jail, Hazelett said. Once she is released from jail and if she does reside with the family friends, Pittman said, Conn is to remain on house arrest for six months with privileges only for medical, counseling and probation appointments.

She also is not to be alone with a child under the age of 18 at any time without an adult supervision, Pittman said.

Pittman told Conn her illegal behavior “cannot be tolerated” and that she will be imprisoned if she re-offends. The judge said she did not want to simply “warehouse” Conn in a prison where she would not receive counseling or treatment to prevent another offense.

“She’d have no tools once she gets out of prison, and I’m afraid she’ll re-offend,” Pittman said.

“There is no easy option,” Assistant Portage County Prosecutor Eric Finnegan said. “She needs to at least have the opportunity to get some help.”

3.	Posted by babyjay1211 March 17, 2010
	I can't not believe Judge Pittman didn't sentence this woman to jail. There is NO rehab. for a child molester. If this was an 18 year old young man and he did the same thing to an 11 year old little girl-he would be sitting in prison! She is no different then a man and she was already a Tier I offender. What more evidence do the people of the legal system want? She is a child molester and always will be a child molester. And of course the insanity plea always works!!! The parents of this boy should be furious with the judge and the prosecutor. The tax payers are paying for counseling, so they should pay for this young boy's counseling too. My prayers go out to the victim and his family!I hope he can get all the counseling he needs to get over this awful incident. All child molester's showed be put in prison NO MATTER if they are a woman or a man!!!!!