WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) - A Massachusetts man was sentenced to 10 to 12 years in prison for raping two teenagers who lived near him.
One of the teenagers spoke at William R. Ahearn’s sentencing hearing Tuesday in Worcester Superior Court, saying she was happy before she met him. The second teenager watched the hearing on video.
Ahearn, 49, pleaded guilty to five charges of child rape, the Telegram & Gazette reported.
The teenagers live near Ahearn’s home in Barre. Prosecutors said he raped them separately, solicited them for sex via text messages, gave them alcohol and recorded himself raping one of them.
An adult found explicit texts on a phone and called the police, prosecutors said.
The teenager who addressed Ahearn in court said, “I wanted to tell you what my life was like before I met you. I was happy,” the newspaper reported.
The father of the teenager watching via video told the judge he feared for her well-being every day after the rape and after Ahearn’s release on bail last year, the newspaper reported.
An attorney for Ahearn, Jacqueline M. Dutton, said he wanted to accept responsibility and had sent an email apologizing to a relative of one of the teenagers, the newspaper reported.
Ahearn will be credited for the time he has already spent in jail and will be required to register as a sex offender upon release.
___ This story has been correct to show that one of the teenagers spoke before Ahearn’s sentencing, not both.
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