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August 15, 2005
Child molester gets 20 years
The once-wealthy Anne Arundel County man who brought boys to Ocean City and molested them agreed to a binding plea bargain on Wednesday that mandates he serve 20 years in prison.
“I have nothing to say,” Loren John Williams, 44, of Edgewater, told Judge Thomas C. Groton III in Circuit Court in Snow Hill before sentence was pronounced.
The crimes, Groton said, had an untold emotional and mental effect on the victims during what “should have been a carefree time of their lives.” There was no way to know how long those effects would last, he said.
Groton sentenced Williams according to the binding plea bargain that called for 15-year sentences on each of two counts of sexual abuse of a child, with all suspended but 10 years of each of the sentences, which will be served consecutively. Following his release from prison, Williams would be on supervised probation for five years.
Williams has yet to be sentenced in Anne Arundel County, where he pleaded guilty to seven counts. He is also expected to be sentenced to 15 years in prison on federal charges and after his release from federal prison, would be on probation for as long as he lives.
“It’s comforting to know you’ll be supervised the rest of your natural life,” Groton said.
Although Williams is married and has a son, he was alone in the courtroom except for his two attorneys, J. Harrison Phillips, who maintains an office in Ocean City, and Gary Christopher, a federal public defender. Motions, not a trial, had been scheduled for Wednesday, but the defense attorneys, State’s Attorney Joel Todd and Assistant State’s Attorney Kathy Smith, who handled the case, worked out the details of the plea bargain that morning.
Smith said the plea bargain was agreed on to save the young victims for needing to testify in court. That was the “first and foremost reason,” she said. She did not want to traumatize them further and was trying to save them from further harm and embarrassment.
Confiscated videotapes and photographs from Williams’ Edgewater residence revealed sexual abuse of a number of boys. Some of the abuse occurred in Anne Arundel County and other abuse occurred in Worcester County. He was charged in Worcester County with the sexual abuse of two boys.
He had brought them to Ocean City where they stayed in older hotels in the downtown area. One of the boys said the sexual assaults began in 2001 or 2002 when he was 13 or 14. The abuse continued until the Ocean City incident in 2003. After that, the boy stayed away from Williams, he told police.
Williams was in shackles in the courtroom because he has been behind bars in Anne Arundel County for months. He made a fortune in real estate and at one time, owned approximately 50 rental properties. He also had bank accounts with substantial funds, according to the police report.
In court, Williams said he wished he had different attorneys, but when pressed, said he was satisfied with them. Phillips said there had been a lot of problems with fees.
Posted by Nealus at August 15, 2005 03:18 PM
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