LAKE COUNTY — Former San Pablo resident Timothy Hanse Freeman, 43, was sentenced Monday to 50 years to life in prison for raping a 9-year-old Clearlake girl in June, according to Lake County Deputy District Attorney Ed Borg.
Freeman pleaded guilty Nov. 3 to felony charges of having sexual intercourse with a child younger than 10 and aggravated sexual assault of a child.
He also admitted being convicted of rape by force in a 1990 Solano case. Freeman will be 85 years old when he becomes eligible for parole, because the most recent conviction requires that he serve at least 85 percent of his sentence.
“We wanted a sentence that would keep him in prison until he was very, very old, and that”s what we got out of this. For not having killed someone, this is a fairly stiff sentence in California. But it”s not unusual, because in sex crime cases, it”s easy to get to a life sentence,” Borg said.
“It”s the so-called ?one-strike law” ? if you were convicted of a prior sex crime, pretty much any other sex crime after that becomes a life count,” Borg said.
According to Borg, Freeman was arrested in San Pablo on a weapons charge after serving 17 years of his sentence for the 1990 rape, and was on parole in Contra Costa County when he relocated to Clearlake in May 2008.
According to a Lake County District Attorney”s Office press release, Freeman had stayed with the victim”s mother for several weeks when the crime occurred.
The victim”s mother knew Freeman was on parole, but not that he had absconded from parole.
The release goes on to say that on the night of the rape, the victim”s mother asked Freeman to watch her 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son while she worked a graveyard shift.
The children”s regular babysitter was unavailable, according to the release.
“According to the police reports and the interview with the victim, he (Freeman) was in the mother”s bedroom with the victim and was touching her breast area. She became uncomfortable and went to her bedroom. He was wandering around the house looking for a hat, and about half an hour later went into her room and raped her,” Borg said.
The victim told her mother about the rape the next morning, and the mother asked Freeman to leave and called the Clearlake Police Department, according to the release. Borg said Clearlake police found and arrested Freeman in the downtown Clearlake area the same day.
According to Borg, a drug charge and a charge of oral copulation on a child younger than 10 years old were dropped as part of a plea-bargain.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com, or call her directly at 263-5636 ext. 37.
