Convicted Kansas rapist Jacob Ewing sentenced to seven more years for sex crimes
Jacob Ewing has received additional prison time for his crimes against women, sex crimes that have divided the town of Holton, Kan., for more than a year.
On Wednesday, Jackson County District Judge Norbert Marek sentenced Ewing to 7.5 years for the attempted rape of a woman in 2014 and child exploitation related to images he had of an underage girl, The Associated Press reports.
In September, the 23-year-old Ewing was sentenced to 27 years for raping and sodomizing two other women. A jury in June found him guilty on 11 of 12 charges, including two counts of rape, four of aggravated criminal sodomy and two of battery.
According to the Topeka Capital-Journal, Marek departed from an earlier agreement between Ewing’s attorney, Kathleen Ambrosio, and prosecutor Jacqie Spradling, that Ewing’s sentences would run concurrently.
Now he faces about 35 years in prison. Family members declined to comment to media.
The accusations against Ewing, his trials, an acquittal and conviction bitterly divided opinions in Holton, a town of about 3,000 north of Topeka, where some people supported him and others believed his accusers.
Attorneys had a hard time finding jurors for his trials because so many prospective candidates said they knew him or his family, or considered themselves friends of his.
“It’s put such a stain on our community,” Ewing’s grandmother, Julie Hawthorne, told The Kansas City Star in June.
Holton, she said, “is quaint. The people are so nice. Then you’ve got this. The news portrays anybody who supports Jacob or us as being these hicks. ... We’re not these backward people.”
Marek’s sentence on Wednesday of a total 91 months in prison stems from Ewing’s Alford Plea to one count of attempted rape and a no-contest plea to sexual exploitation of a child, WIBW reports.
An Alford Plea means Ewing maintained his innocence but accepted a guilty plea as part of a plea bargain for a lesser sentence.
He must register for life as a sex offender.
This story was originally published November 15, 2017 at 1:24 PM with the headline "Convicted Kansas rapist Jacob Ewing sentenced to seven more years for sex crimes."