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November 6, 2009

Man, 70, found guilty of sex crimes

Mark Millican

A 70-year-old Dalton man charged with child sex crimes took his case to a jury and was found guilty in Whitfield County Superior Court. James Melvin Tudor was sentenced to 25-years-to-life and will spend the next 25 years in prison without the possibility of parole, court officials said.

Tudor, of 638 Tilton Road S.E., was found guilty of two counts of aggravated sexual battery, four counts of child molestation and one count of enticing a child for indecent purposes. He was arrested in April.

“The controlling charge — the aggravated sexual battery — determines the sentence and is one of Georgia’s seven deadly sin sentences to be served without parole,” said District Attorney Kermit McManus. “It carries a 25-years-to-life sentence and he will not get parole before 25 years.”

Judge William Boyett passed down the sentence after a unanimous guilty verdict. A clerk of court spokeswoman said if Tudor gets out of prison he will be on probation for the rest of his life. The child molestation counts carry six years each, and the enticement charge is a 10-year sentence. Those will be served concurrently.

McManus said Tudor was charged with molesting three separate girls around 6 years old.

“One of the children started making disclosures when she was being bathed by her mother,” he said. “The child was seen by a sex assault nurse examiner. I don’t think it was a situation where (Tudor and the girls) were related, but he was acting in a baby-sitting capacity when the girls were not having school. But it’s not a stranger-stranger situation.”

Circuit public defender Mike McCarthy represented Tudor and admitted the verdict “did not go well at all.”

“He had two different girls who accused him of fondling them, and a third girl who witnessed when the touching of another girl was happening,” he said. “The state also brought in an allegation from a girl who said the same thing happened to her 10 years ago — she’s 18 now — and it was very harmful (testimony) to him.”

McCarthy said Tudor actually got the minimum on the charges, but “he’ll be 95 before he sees the light of day again.”

“We’ll file an appeal in the near future, but that will take some time,” he said. “He’s in custody and will be shipped off (to the state prison system) in the near future.”





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