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Man convicted of raping child, sentenced to 10 years to life

Morning Journal/Deanne Johnson Thomas Singer leaves the courtroom in his wheelchair after being sentenced to 10 years to life in prison for rape for having oral sex with a 12-year-old boy.

LISBON — Only 20 minutes after the Columbiana County Common Pleas Court jurors retired to the jury room to deliberate, they notified the court they had a guilty verdict against Thomas B. Singer, 69, in the rape of a 12-year-old boy.

Singer was sentenced to 10 years to life by Judge C. Ashley Pike immediately following the jury trial, which concluded on the second day on Wednesday.

Singer, who turns 70 next week, remained defiant about whether he deserved to be charged with a first-degree felony rape charge or to be sentenced to at least 10 years in prison.

The 12-year-old boy’s mother spoke during the sentencing hearing, calling Singer a “piece of garbage” and stating she was glad he would be spending the rest of his life in prison, unable to harm any other children like he had done to her son.

“It affected my son greatly,” the mother said, “and you deserve to go where you are going.”

Singer fired back at the mother from his wheelchair, parked at the defense table, that if she had “stayed home a little longer and raised the kid right” he would not have been able to do this to him. The 12-year-old boy lived with his mother and often visited his father, who was a neighbor of Singer in the West Point area.

Although he was silenced by Deputy Jen Tucker for his outburst, Singer was allowed to make a statement before sentencing.

Singer said what happened was not planned and he had not been “grooming” the boy as Assistant County Prosecutor Tammie Riley Jones had indicated during closing arguments. Singer continued there is a lot about the case which is not right. Singer talked about another inmate at the county jail, who was driving drunk and on drugs when he crashed his vehicle which killed one of his passengers and seriously injured the other. Singer questioned how the legal system would allow for someone like that to be sentenced to only six years while Singer would be spending the rest of his life in jail.

“I don’t think anybody’s interested in your commentary of our criminal justice system,” Pike said after sentencing Singer to 10 years to life in prison. Singer was credited with a year already served because he was taken to the county jail after being interviewed by deputies on April 4, 2017. Whether he serves 10 years or additional years will be determined by the parole board.

Prior to sentencing, Singer had called it a lifetime sentence regardless, saying no one in his family ever lives to age 80. Should he ever be released, Singer will be required to register his address as a Tier III sexual offender for the remainder of his life.

Earlier in the day the jury heard the testimony of Janet Gorsuch of the Child Advocacy Center who had done a forensic interview with the 12-year-old boy about what had happened between him and Singer. During closing arguments Jones pointed to Gorsuch’s expert opinions that this was “classical symptoms of grooming” by Singer, starting by playing cards with his “little buddy” and continuing to progress slowly to rubbing the child’s ankle with cream, the foot fetish activities and eventually oral sex.

Jones noted grooming often leads to sexual conduct and includes introducing the idea of sexual conduct slowly and making sure the child is not going to tell anyone. Singer admitted in his taped statement to deputies that he had asked the boy if he could keep what they were doing a secret and if the boy was deleting their messages from his phone so his mother would not see them.

When Singer himself was on the stand in his own defense on Wednesday, he tried to say it was not typical of him to do such things and he sometimes gets anxious. Jones stated while Singer wanted the jury to believe he was afraid, she pointed out he spoke almost “matter of factly” about what happened with deputies.

“That man right there, that is a man who is a predator,” Jones said, “who preyed on, groomed and sexually assaulted a 12-year-old boy.”

She continued he was a predator who said during his interview with deputies he “couldn’t not take advantage of something handed to him on a silver platter.”

Jones also had noted numerous times during his interview with deputies Singer had said he knew it was wrong.

Singer was defended by an appointed team of Christopher Weeda and Jennifer Gorby. Weeda spoke during closing arguments, pointing out Singer never meant for this to happen. He played games with the boy and his younger brother and rubbed medicine on the boy’s hurt ankle.

“It’s not like he lured this kid down there with a purpose to do this,” Weeda said.

He also noted Singer has no criminal history and served his country. Singer had first disclosed what was happening with the boy to his counselor at the Veterans Administration clinic, which is mandated to report possible sexual assaults to investigators.

djohnson@mojonews.com

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