Man gets life sentence for grooming children for sex
August 23, 2008
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
TYLER – A 41-year-old auto body shop worker convicted of grooming children as young as 5 to perform in sex shows at a small-town swingers club was sentenced Thursday to life in prison.
Patrick Kelly also was ordered to pay restitution and pay a $10,000 fine.
Kelly whispered to his attorney but showed no emotion after the verdict and sentence were read. Jurors deliberated about two hours before finding him guilty of engaging in organized criminal activity and another 15 minutes on the penalty.
“As we stand here, I still absolutely believe that my client is innocent,” Kelly’s defense attorney, Thad Davidson, said outside the courtroom after the sentence was read.
Defense attorneys sought a suspended sentence of less than 10 years so Kelly could be placed on probation. Prosecutors had pushed for the life sentence, saying he had changed the lives of the five children he sexually abused.
“Let him change in that penitentiary,” prosecutor Joe Murphy told jurors.
Authorities alleged Kelly was a member of the so-called Mineola Swinger’s Club, though Kelly has testified that he is innocent. They contended that Kelly helped set up a “kindergarten” where young children learned to dance provocatively. To help perform at the club, prosecutors say the children were given Vicodin-like drugs the adults passed off as “silly pills.”
During closing arguments Thursday morning, the prosecutor accused Kelly of sexually exploiting five children tied to the case who, he said, showed signs of sexual abuse. Kelly videotaped the children stripping and their sexualized performances, prosecutors alleged.
“Why is it that every little kid that comes into contact with him is broken?” Murphy asked.
Davidson questioned why the children didn’t remember details about the club and why they weren’t examined by medical personnel trained to detect sexual abuse.
The defense attorney also contended that the lead investigator had little experience handling sex crimes, said he didn’t conduct a thorough investigation and accused him of being improperly influenced by Margie Cantrell, the foster mother of three of the children. Cantrell sparked the two-year investigation by the Texas Rangers when she reported that her foster children told her of having been forced into sex 18 months earlier inside the windowless rooms of the former day care center.
“So you got these incredible suggestive, tainted … interviews. And who takes over the interviews? The woman who has custody of the three children,” Davidson said.
Kelly testified during the trial that he has no knowledge of “silly pills” and never made children do any kind of sexual dancing or touched them inappropriately. He said he has never even been to the Mineola Swinger’s Club.
Other witnesses called by Kelly’s attorneys have said that while swinger parties took place in the building, children were never present.
After learning of the sentence, Kelly’s relatives, including his son and niece, left the courthouse crying.
“I thought things would go the justice way, but justice is fickle I guess,” Kelly’s mother, Linda, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “I honestly don’t know why it went the way it did. This is the first time I’ve heard all this stuff that the D.A. is putting out – that is not my child.”
Kelly’s stepdaughter, niece, mother and wife testified on his behalf during the punshiment phase, saying he was a hard-working family man who had never been convicted of a crime. His mother said the entire family stands behind her son.
The prosecutor countered the characterization. Murphy asked Kelly’s stepdaughter about allegations by child advocates that Kelly beat her and his wife. He also told jurors Kelly didn’t contest previous abuse allegations by child welfare officials involving another child who is not part of the case. Those cases did not result in charges.
Kelly was also charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child and tampering with physical evidence but he was not tried on those charges.
Two others who allegedly took part in the ring, Jamie Pittman and Shauntel Mayo, were earlier convicted in minutes and sentenced to life in prison. Three other defendants in the case are awaiting trial.
Mineola is about 85 miles east of Dallas.
Posted by Grim Reporter | Filed Under Bad News, blog
Related Stories:
Comments
Got something to say?
