Judge Bennett R. Gallo this afternoon sentenced Anderson Price, a habitual criminal who is a registered sex offender in four states, to four years to serve out of the possible five-year maximum penalty that could have been imposed, on the count of felony child enticement that a Washington County Superior Court jury convicted Price of in June.

Having found Price, a 44-year-old Louisiana native, to be a habitual offender in September, Judge Gallo also sentenced Price to 10 years suspended with probation, consecutive to the enticement penalty, meaning that Price’s total sentence is 15 years with four to serve and 11 suspended with probation. Although the sentence was short of what his office had recommended, Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch said he was satisfied with the outcome.

“Under the old, misdemeanor child-enticement statute, the most that this dangerous recidivist would have served would have been a year in jail,” Lynch noted. “Unless we succeeded in amending the law and making it the felony that it always should have been, it’s entirely possible that, based on the time he’s served in jail since his arrest last year, Price could have walked out of the courtroom today as a free man. That this didn’t happen, however, is very positive news.”

Lynch was referring to a bill that his office drafted in the 2008 session of the Legislature that made child enticement a felony. Lynch’s bill, which was offered by Rep. Peter Kilmartin (D-Pawtucket) and Sen. David Bates (R-Barrington), also broadened the existing law so that a child did not have to be lured to “enter a structure, enclosed area or alley,” but rather, that a child simply had to be lured to “enter an area.” (RIGL 11-26-1.5 — Felony offense of enticement of a minor child into a vehicle with intent to engage in lewd, illicit or criminal conduct.)

By definition, a misdemeanor carries a maximum imprisonment of one year. By making the law a felony, however, the Lynch bill upped the maximum prison term to five years. The bill became law last year. Lynch’s office believes that Price, who is a registered sex offender in Georgia, Louisiana, Maine and Rhode Island, is the first defendant to have been prosecuted and convicted under the new law.

“He has a long, ugly and violent record. In the North Kingstown case, we’re very lucky that he was unable to force his victim into his van,” said Lynch.

During a four-day trial before Judge Gallo in June, the State’s prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Regine, presented evidence that Price and two friends drove to a North Kingstown housing complex at about 8 PM on Sept. 3, 2008, looking to buy drugs. When leaving the complex they encountered three teenage girls, one of whom appeared to be alone. Price stopped the van to talk to the 15 year old, and got out of his van to question her about boyfriends and to tell her he had an ATM card and could “take care” of her.

(MORE)

Defendant is first to be sentenced on strengthened child-enticement statute Page 2 of 2 11/10/09

The 6-4, 240-pound Price — who had been released from prison in Georgia on March 4, 2008, and had registered as a sex offender with the North Kingstown Police on Aug. 28, 2008 — then put his arm around the teenager’s shoulder, forcibly grabbed at her breast and steered her in the direction of the van. Her two friends ran toward her at that point and the defendant jumped into the van and took off. Upon receiving a report of the incident, the North Kingstown Police and Rhode Island State Police began searching for the van. They found it in the parking lot of the Wickford Motor Inn, which Price had listed as his address the week before when he had registered with the police, found Price and arrested him.

Although in June it convicted Price of the child-enticement charge, the jury acquitted him of one count of second-degree sexual assault, with which he also had been charged. Judge Gallo, now serving in Kent County Superior Court, today sentenced Price in Warwick. Judge Gallo today also imposed a no-contact order, prohibiting Price from having any interaction with his victim, ordered Price to complete a drug-abuse treatment program while he is incarcerated at the ACI and ordered him to re-register as a sex offender in Rhode Island when he is released from prison.

Price’s extensive criminal record dates to December 1991, when he was arrested in Georgia and later convicted of rape and sodomy charges. He was sentenced to 15 years, with four years to serve and 11 years suspended with probation in 1993. Upon his release from prison, in 1995, Price was arrested and convicted of possession of crack cocaine in Louisiana in 1998. This resulted in his serving an 18-month sentence to hard labor in Louisiana and triggered the first of his two probation violations. Upon completion of his Louisiana sentence, Price was extradited to Georgia and ordered to serve two years as a probation violator there. Upon his release from a Georgia prison in 2003, he was arrested again, in 2005 in Louisiana, for failing to register as a sex offender. He was held as a probation violator in Louisiana and then extradited back to Georgia and imprisoned until March of 2008. Rhode Island records reveal that he moved to Rhode Island to work for a barge company on Aug. 28, 2008.

# # #

Related links