A military veteran accused of faking his suicide in a bid to dodge criminal charges for raping and impregnating his 14-year-old stepdaughter has been sentenced to 85 years behind bars.

A jury on Thursday voted to convict Jacob Blair Scott, who showed no emotion when they found him guilty of nine counts of sexual battery, four counts of touching a child for lustful purposes and one count of child exploitation.

Authorities said Blair assaulted his wife’s daughter while the woman slept in their Mississippi home during the summer of 2018. Her mother only learned of the abuse when the teen’s older sister took her to a hospital and learned the victim was 10 weeks pregnant, according to police.

A DNA test later confirmed Scott was the father.

The 43-year-old Mississippi man, from Moss, was arrested on a series of charges, but he posted bond in July 2018 and then later failed to appear for a scheduled court hearing that month. Instead, he attempted to fake his own death by abandoning a small boat with a gun and a suicide note inside in Orange Beach, Ala., WLOX-TV reported.

Authorities found little evidence to support a suicide but searched for a body for more than a week in the Gulf of Mexico.

He was eventually captured in early 2020 at an RV park in Oklahoma, where he was living under another person’s name.

Scott is a military veteran who was awarded a Purple Heart in 2011 for injuries he received while deployed in Iraq, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, which had once listed him as one of its 15 most wanted fugitives.

With News Wire Services



Source link

By admin