NORTHAMPTON — A Southampton man was sentenced Monday to four to five years of incarceration for assaulting and raping two children in two separate cases between 2015 and 2017.

Under a plea deal, Joshua Leblanc pleaded guilty in Hampshire Superior Court to two separate counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14. He received a sentence of four to five years’ incarceration on each of those counts, which will be served concurrently. Leblanc also pleaded guilty to two separate counts of rape of a child. He was sentenced to 10 years’ probation on each of those counts, which will also be served concurrently.

Judge Richard J. Carey presided over the sentencing. The court recommended a portion of the sentence to be served at the Hampshire County Jail and House of Corrections.

The Daily Hampshire Gazette does not typically identify survivors of rape and sexual assault.

The outcome stems from two separate cases filed in September 2017 and April 2018. Originally, in each case, Leblanc was charged with three counts of aggravated rape of a child (five-year age difference) and three counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, for a total of 12 charges. In the years leading up to the plea deal, Leblanc, who was 25 when he was charged in the second case, had maintained his innocence on all charges.

In 2017, prosecutors accused Leblanc of assaulting and raping a 4-year-old girl in June of that year. The Southampton Police Department had arrested him during an investigation and seized his cellphone after questioning him at the police station.

In September 2018, Leblanc was charged with raping another child sometime between May 2015 and May 2016.

A jury trial was scheduled for last Monday, but due to the plea deal the trial never took place. The state dismissed four of the aggravated rape charges, and Leblanc pleaded guilty to two lesser charges of rape of a child. The state also dropped four indecent assault and battery charges.

Leblanc is subject to about a dozen conditions for his probation, including not having any unsupervised contact with any child under 16, not having any contact with the victims, registering as a sex offender and submitting to GPS monitoring. He was also credited 272 days of time already served.

Leblanc was represented by attorneys Alfred Chamberland and Rachel Weber. Assistant Northwestern District Attorneys Linda Pisano and Lori K. Odierna served as the prosecution

 

Michael Connors can be reached at mconnors@gazettenet.com.]]>