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May 31, 2005
Jury urges prison term in abuse case
A Clay County jury is recommending that a former foster parent in Claycomo spend 97 years in prison for eight counts of sodomy, child molestation and felony child abuse.
The jury, which heard testimony last week, deliberated on the charges for two days before convicting Jacob T. Sipes, 47, on Tuesday and giving a sentencing recommendation. Sipes will be sentenced by Judge Michael J. Maloney on June 30.
Sipes, who was arrested in 2003 after a two-month investigation, was the foster father to the four victims, whose ages ranged from 6 to 10. The offenses occurred in his trailer home between November 2001 and April 2003.
The victims were two boys and two girls, all of whom were related. According to authorities, Sipes sexually assaulted one boy and thumped him so badly that he lost consciousness. He also painfully squeezed the other boy's genitalia and fondled the two girls.
“The child victims of this offender had earlier been removed from their natural parents' home and placed with the Sipes family,” said Clay County Prosecutor Dan White. “This literally was an instance of out of the frying pan and into the fire. They went from an environment of abusive neglect to one of sexual abuse.”
Sipes' attorney, Robert Nickerson, maintained his client's innocence during the trial and said he probably would appeal.
“There's no dispute that these children were abused,” Nickerson said Wednesday. “It just was not by my client.”
The charges against Sipes stemmed from reports of physical and sexual assault that surfaced in August 2003 from another foster parent. At the time, the children had been removed from the Sipes household, authorities said.
The Missouri Department of Social Services later suspended Sipes' foster parent license.
According to court records, one of the victims said the assaults began in summer 2002. Another assault occurred a short time later, and the victim told her foster mother, Sipes' wife.
The woman told the victim that she would have to report the assaults and that social workers would then remove the victim and the other children and place them in separate homes.
The victim then recanted the story. Virginia Sipes never reported the assaults to a caseworker, according to court records.
Prosecutors later charged Virginia Sipes with six counts of felony child endangerment.
Virginia Sipes, 57, is to be tried on those charges in June.
Posted by Nealus at May 31, 2005 02:31 PM
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