Warren man sentenced to life in prison for rape of another young girl

Staff report

WARREN

Jamey L. Sprankle, 46, of Union Street Southwest, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison Thursday after pleading guilty to raping, molesting and photographing a young girl for about six months starting in August 2017.

“It’s a horrible crime, probably one of the worst crimes that can happen to a child,” said Diane Barber, an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor. “The girl will have years of therapy ahead of her. She’s been severely traumatized.”

Barber said it’s fortunate that Sprankle’s plea means the girl will not have to testify.

Sprankle served about nine years in prison starting in 2005 for raping another young Trumbull County girl. He had to register as a sexually oriented offender.

Sprankle moved in with a woman in August 2017 and began committing offenses against her daughter soon afterward.

Sprankle pleaded guilty in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to all 21 charges he faced – three of rape that carried a life prison sentence, six of gross sexual imposition, six of pandering obscenity involving a minor and six of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material.

The crimes came to light because the girl’s brother became suspicious of Sprankle while her mother was in the hospital, Barber said.

Investigators recovered a cellphone containing five photographs and a video Sprankle took of the girl in the nude, Barber said.