Jacob Blair Scott, convicted of 14 child crimes after the military veteran admitted that he repeatedly sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl in Jackson County, will serve 85 years day for day in prison, a judge decided late Thursday.
Circuit Judge Kathy King Jackson also decided that Scott should pay $10,000 in fines.
Scott, now 48 and dressed in a blue suit, was emotionless when, earlier in the day Thursday, a jury found him guilty of nine counts of sexual battery, 4 counts of touching a child for lustful purposes and one count of child exploitation.
The courtroom was packed as the verdict was read aloud. Multiple members of law enforcement were there to support the victim. Scott’s mother wept when the decision was handed down.
During closing arguments, District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath and Assistant District Attorney Justin Lovorn took aim at Scott for trying to blame his mental state, a failing relationship and even the victim for sexually assaulting the young girl, who became pregnant with his child.
The girl tearfully testified for over an hour about how Scott had sexually assaulted her at least 30 times over several months beginning in 2016 and ending in 2017 when she learned she was pregnant.
“He is going to come in here and tell you I’m in the trenches with my (companion) and it’s so bad that I’m going to stick my (genitalia) in her,” McIlrath said. “Are you kidding me?
“This is the first time in my 18 years I have ever seen anything so brazen and so vile,” McIlrath said of his attempt at a defense. “This is about blaming the 14-year-old. This whole trial was about humiliating the 14-year-old who had no choice” about what happened to her.
She talked about how Scott tried to highlight his military accomplishment to the jury calling it his “hail Mary” to try to get some kind of leniency from the jury.
McIlrath also blasted his defense of having a hard life for committing the crimes.
“Life is hard,” she said. “It’s hard for everybody. It is hard, right? It makes us who we are. It’s what you do when life is hard that matters.”
“If you don’t like your (your companion, leave) her,” she said. “If you don’t have sex…, you know there are options.
“You know what isn’t an option? Having sex with … (a 14-year-old girl).”
Scott committed the sex crimes in 2016 and 2017 and was supposed to turn himself in but faked his death in Orange Beach, Alabama, and was later caught in Oklahoma.
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