Man pleads to reduced charge in sexual assault of young boy

& lt;a href=mailto:bjackson@vindy.com & gt;By BOB JACKSON & lt;/a & gt;
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- An East Judson Avenue man faces 18 months in prison, instead of life, after pleading guilty Monday to sexually assaulting a young boy.
Willie E. Jones, 24, was scheduled for trial in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court for one count of rape. If he'd been convicted, he could have been sentenced to life behind bars.
But after Judge Jack Durkin ruled against them on several pretrial motions, prosecutors reduced the charge to gross sexual imposition, a fourth-degree felony, to which Jones pleaded guilty. He is out of jail awaiting sentencing, which will be in June.
Authorities said Jones molested the victim during all of 2002. The abuse was discovered when the little boy's mother found warts on his rectal area. A doctor said the warts were sexually transmitted, and that's when the boy said Jones was responsible.
The boy was about 30 months old at the time.
After viewing a videotaped statement the boy made to a sex-abuse counselor last year, Judge Durkin ruled Monday that the accuser was not competent to testify against Jones during the trial.
Assistant Prosecutor Dawn Krueger had hoped to show jurors that taped statement if the boy could not testify in person, but Judge Durkin struck down that option as well.
Without the ability for jurors to hear the boy's testimony, either live or on tape, Krueger said the state's case was severely wounded and the plea agreement was the best way to salvage it.