A Norfolk man who victimized multiple male teenagers was sentenced to the penitentiary last month despite his age and frail health, after pleading guilty to sexual assault.
Steven Albert Good, 67, who sat in a wheelchair in court last month, was ordered into custody for a three-year sentence despite his lawyer’s arguments that Good’s life would be compromised in prison.
“I’m not going to use the words ‘death warrant’ but his life could be in serious jeopardy,” said Asgar Manek on behalf of Good.
“He’s shown his remorse and spared the victim from testifying and he is also a victim. I urge you to consider the maximum community service sentence of two years less a day, which is still considered a jail sentence.”
The court heard that Good himself was also sexually abused as a young man.
But Justice Aubrey Hilliard sided with assistant Crown attorney Gracie Romano, who laid out a case for the three-year sentence, which already took into account Good’s guilty plea and fragile health.
The judge reflected on case law and parliamentary pronouncements saying sentences for sexual offenders of children have been “too low for too long” and noted a house arrest sentence would be extremely rare.
“(Good) has some significant health issues at present however there’s no evidence that satisfies me that his conditions can’t be accommodated in a custodial facility.”
Most important, Hilliard said, was the fact that Good has a previous conviction for sexual offenses and was sentenced in 1997 to 18 months in jail and placed on the sexual offenders registry.
After that conviction, Good was ordered to get treatment for sexual offenses and said it was a revelation to him.
“It appears it was successful insofar as Mr. Good stopped committing sexual offenses,” said Hilliard, noting that the current offenses occurred before that arrest and treatment. “I accept that Mr. Good is not the same man today he was at the time of the offences.”
But, said the judge, a community sentence would be inappropriate in a case where jail is the starting point even for first offenders.
Instead of preparing a typical victim impact statement, the victim in the case – described by the judge as the “last in a series of male youths victimized by Mr. Good from the 1970s to the mid-1990s,” ending only with Good’s arrest – spoke from his heart.
“This has been beating at me for the last five years,” said the man about how the case has dragged on through the courts.
“It made me question my own sexuality growing up.”
While Hilliard could not apply a probation order to the penitentiary sentence, she did create an order that means Good, once released, cannot be within two kilometers of his victim’s home for 10 years.
“I know this has taken a long time,” Hilliard said apologetically to the victim.
“We can’t always work at the pace we would like but we try really hard.”
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