TodayJudge stands by previous decision
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Article RatingA Cumberland County judge on Tuesday gave a convicted molester a nearly identical sentence as one previously thrown out by an appeals court.
In a unusual six-page statement issued to reporters, Judge Kevin Hess said he saw the state Superior Court’s decision as a technical ruling and not a reflection of the sentence’s length.
He also sought to emphasize that by remaining with his original sentence — 11 1/2 months in Cumberland County Prison for Matthew Robert Oliver, 46, of the 700 block of Franklin Street — he was not merely sticking to original reasoning. The original sentence was overturned because Hess had combined two charges and given them a joint sentence instead of separating them and having the more serious 11 1/2-month sexual-assault sentence take precedence.
“I am not sitting here today simply explaining my prior sentence. I have reconsidered the matter entirely,” Hess told a nearly empty courtroom, including Oliver and the involved attorneys.
Hess said he agreed with Karl Rominger’s assertions that Oliver’s actions were an unprecedented, but complicated, stain in an otherwise productive life.
Bills must be paid
On Jan. 4, 2004, Oliver performed a sexual act on a 17-year-old Newville boy who was staying the night at his home. That much was clear following a trial later that year.
Rominger and Hess agreed that his action’s offending nature was not as severe as the majority of sexual assault cases, and as such merited a lighter sentencing than the normal 36- to 54-month standard range.
Referenced trial findings
In his statement, Hess referenced the trial’s findings, saying Oliver and the boy had become friends and had considerable appropriate contact before the night in question. Eventually, the two began discussing bisexuality, Hess says, and the boy admitted to partially disrobing that night on his own accord.
But when Oliver began a sexual act with the teen, the boy told him to stop, and the man did so, Hess says. “This is not a case involving prolonged sexual activity.”
At the original October 2004 sentencing, Hess took a similar stance.
“When it was clear (Oliver) was wrong and the victim asked him to stop, (Oliver) ceased,” Hess said at the time, adding: “Nonetheless, harm was done.”
On Tuesday, the judge also referred to letters written on Oliver’s behalf including one from the state’s sexual predator assessment board that ruled Oliver “poses virtually no risk to reoffend.”
With the sentence, which Hess pointed out is half the minimum in the mitigated guidelines, Oliver will see no difference in confinement time but will have to pay the boy’s medical bills for counseling and psychiatric treatment.
Oliver’s been free on parole since August.
Hess pointed out that, if the sentence truly is too light, the state Superior Court has the power to overrule it on that basis rather than the technical glitch it cited previously.
The Superior Court could not take up the matter unless prosecutors appeal it again.
“It’s too soon to tell,” First Assistant District Attorney Jaime Keating said afterwards. “I didn’t understand the previous sentence, so hopefully when I read” the judge’s explanation it will make sense, he said.
Nonetheless, Keating repeated his earlier criticisms that the sentence is too light. He also scoffed at the notion that the state sexual predators assessment board could conclude so resolutely that Oliver poses no future threat.
“I guess I’ll just refer” any possible future victims to the state assessment board, he said.
