A Dothan man will likely spend the rest of his life in prison after a judge sentenced him to serve 64 years in prison for multiple child porn and sex abuse charges.
Circuit Court Judge Ed Jackson sentenced John Andrew Lee to serve 12 years in prison for each of the two felony sex abuse charges and 10 years in prison for each of the eight production of child pornography charges. Jackson ordered all the charges, except four of the child porn crimes, to run consecutively with each other.
The jury found the 39-year-old Lee guilty in December 2009 of the 10 felony charges. He was found not guilty of a first-degree rape charge. Dothan police arrested Lee in March 2009 on the production of child pornography charges and sex abuse charges.
Assistant District Attorney Nereida Bundy asked for the maximum sentence to be handed down against Lee.
“He took advantage of a young girl, and took photos of her,” Bundy said.
Jackson said Lee faced a minimum of 10 to 99 years in prison for each of the 10 felony charges. Jackson said Lee faced a minimum of 100 years and maximum of 999 years in prison if each charge were to be served consecutively.
Attorney Tom Brantley, who represented Lee, asked the court to consider his client’s short criminal record, especially since he said it included no felony convictions. Brantley also asked the court to run each sentence for each of the charges concurrently with each other instead of consecutively.
“He’s capable of being rehabilitated,” Brantley said. “I believe there’s light at the end of the tunnel for his life.”
Prosecutors said at trial that Lee took photographs with his Blackberry cell phone of the same teenage girl he had sexually abused. They also said Lee had saved the pictures in his password protected phone.
Brantley suggested the victim and her mother staged the sexual assault and child porn charges to get his client arrested. Lee testified during the trial he didn’t know anything about the pictures.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement