Bellefonte man receives sentence 21 years after he was first charged with sexual abuse
A Bellefonte man who pleaded no contest to six misdemeanor sexual assault charges was sentenced Tuesday to one year of house arrest, three years of probation and a $1,000 fine.
Lawrence O’Shell, 62, declined to comment before Centre County Judge Brian Marshall announced the sentence. One of the two women who said she was molested by O’Shell told him, “I don’t hate you. I feel sorry for you.”
State police at Rockview first charged O’Shell in 1998, but prosecutors withdrew the charges after one of the girls recanted because of continuous questioning about whether the molestation occurred, a grand jury said.
She was “tired of going to court; tired of being asked embarrassing questions about (her) abuse; wanted (her) life to return to normal,” the grand jury wrote.
The girl met with state police again in March 1999 and said her original report was accurate. The investigation was reopened in 2012 after a woman said O’Shell confessed to the molestations, the grand jury wrote.
Both girls were then interviewed and confirmed their original reports. One girl said she was approached by O’Shell in 2009, when he said, “You liked what I did to you when you were younger.”
He was charged in May 2017 with 99 felonies and 132 misdemeanors. In March 2018, a majority of the charges were withdrawn.
O’Shell was then facing one felony count of aggravated indecent assault, 32 misdemeanor counts of indecent assault of someone younger than 13 and one misdemeanor count each of corruption of minors and indecent assault of someone younger than 16.
He pleaded no contest to six misdemeanor counts of indecent assault in April. The remaining charges were dropped.
Defense lawyer Steph Cooper declined to comment after the hearing.