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Jay Aaron Smith was convicted of four counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 by a jury, the Hampden County District Attorney's Office said. The judge also sentenced Smith to five years of probation when he's released from prison.
Investigators believe Smith sexually abused a 13-year-old girl for months in late 2020 through early 2021.
“I am deeply grateful to the brave survivor for bringing this abuser to the light of justice. Her courage and strength keeps other children safe from this predator," Hampden County District Attorney Anthony D. Gulluni. "I thank the survivor, the jury, detectives with the Springfield Police Department, and Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Vasiliades, who is assigned to my office’s Special Victim’s Unit, for her skillful prosecution of this case.”
Smith was a level-3 sex offender in Massachusetts after he was convicted of rape in Georgia in the late 1980s, authorities said.
Editor's Note: The Jehovah's Witness of the United States of America disputes the claim made by the Hampden County District Attorney that Jay Aaron Smith held a leadership position in the Springfield church. In an email to Daily Voice, the church's national leadership said Smith never served as an elder for the Jehovah's Witnesses.
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