Judge Reinaker sentenced Defendant Jeremy Barney to a 20 to 40 year sentence this morning. In April, a jury convicted Barney of Rape of a Child, IDSI with a Child, Indecent Assault (multiple counts), Unlawful Contact With Minor, and Corruption of Minors. The offenses occurred in 2008, in Manheim Township. Detective Al Leed initially investigated the case. The victim was a five year old boy. After making some initial disclosures, the boy did not want to talk about the crimes, and charges were not filed until 2012, when the victim as able to talk about the case. By that time, Detective Leed had retired, so Detective Robert Beck took over the case and filed the charges.
Defendant Barney represented himself at the trial in April. The jury convicted the Defendant on all charges except one (Criminal Solicitation to Commit Indecent Assault). Upon conviction, the Court ordered a Pre-sentence Investigation and an Sexual Offender Assessment Board review.
Last week, the Commonwealth filed a Sentencing Memorandum to inform the Court regarding the Defendant’s prior sex crime convictions in Florida in the late 1990s. Initially, we thought that the present conviction would be a second sex crime conviction, requiring the Court to impose a twenty-five to fifty year sentence, but although the Florida sex offenses involved minor victims, the offenses did not qualify as a foundation for the twenty-five to fifty year second strike sentence. Still, we believed that the Florida convictions were relevant and we informed the Court about them and attached Florida court documents to our Sentencing Memorandum so that Judge Reinaker would know about the Defendant’s prior convictions.
Four members of the jury, including the jury foreman, returned to Court for sentencing. We were honored by the depth of their interest in the case.