Hartford Courant

Windsor man sentenced in sexual assault of girl

- — David Owens

HARTFORD — A 31-year-old man who reentered the U.S. after being deported was sentenced Monday to three years in prison and three years of special parole for sexually assaulting a Manchester girl when she was 13 and 14.

Oneil Stevens, who was living in Windsor at the time of his arrest, pleaded guilty previously to second-degree sexual assault as part of a plea agreement.

He made admissions to police about having sexual intercours­e with the teen, and repeated those admissions in court Monday during a somewhat raucous sentencing hearing. Stevens, who told the judge his actual name is Oneil Williams, is expected to be deported to Jamaica upon his release from prison. He is now listed in court records as Oneil Stevens, but his aliases are also noted. He told Hartford Superior Court Judge Laura F. Baldini that Oneil Stevens is his Facebook name.

Stevens met the teen online and began an illicit relationsh­ip with the girl and would sneak her away from her Manchester home. The sexual encounters were not forced, but because the victim was under 16 she could not legally consent to sex.

Stevens claimed to police and to Baldini that he thought the girl was older than 16.

That prompted the victim’s mother, who was in court, to call out to him to stop lying.

“You know she was under age, don’t lie,” the mother said.

“I didn’t know she was that young,” he responded.

The victim’s mother told the judge she thought the three-year sentence was too low. She said she will still be working to help her daughter recover from the abuse when Stevens is released from prison and deported to “sunny Jamaica.”

Stevens told the judge he was a father of two daughters, again insisted he did not know how old the girl was and made several other comments that prompted his lawyer, Gerald Klein, to try to get him to stop talking and to not talk himself into a longer sentence. At one point Baldini asked Stevens if he had anything else to say, and Klein quickly responded, “No, your honor.”

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