sawyer

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — A Jacobsburg man pleaded guilty Monday to a sex crime dating back to 2013 that involved a victim who was younger than 13 at the time.

Thomas K. Sawyer, 33, of 60565 West Pipe Creek Road, Jacobsburg appeared before Belmont County Common Pleas Judge John Vavra and pleaded guilty to gross sexual imposition, a felony of the third degree that occurred in 2013. His trial had been set for next week. Vavra set Sawyer’s sentencing date for Aug. 19. A pre-sentence investigation, victim impact statement and Eastern Ohio Correction Center evaluation were ordered. Sawyer also will have a mental health assessment prior to sentencing. Sawyer previously had been evaluated and found competent to stand trail.

Belmont County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Kevin Flanagan said that in a sexually related crime, the maximum sentence would be five years.

Flanagan added that Sawyer would be required to register as a Tier 2 sex offender.

Flanagan said afterward that he did not know the exact location of the incident.

“The victim was known to him, and she was younger than 13,” Flanagan said. “It was in a vehicle when he was transporting her.

The vehicle was actually still moving, he was giving her a ride and started the inappropriate touching.”

Flanagan said the incident came to the attention of law enforcement more recently, when the victim disclosed the alleged crime to an adult.

The prosecution subsequently began building a case. He said the relative youth of the victim and the delay in reporting were common occurrences in many similar cases.

“That’s always something that we face, but it’s never an impediment,” Flanagan said. “We face that in just about every case. Youth, delayed disclosures, those are all things we are prepared to handle. … A lot of times we are surprised that we have something other than a delayed disclosure. Merely because you have that does not mean that it did not happen. If you look at the vast majority of the cases that we prosecute, you will see that we have a delayed disclosure (that) can be anytime from a couple of days to a couple of weeks to a couple of years and even more than that. We are prepared to handle those scenarios.

“As far as the age goes, in a large part that’s why we have these delayed disclosures, because a child may be afraid to come forward. In a majority of time I would say it’s someone that the child knows, and so they don’t want to disclose,” Flanagan said. “It takes on a number of different levels.”