A Hooper man was sentenced to a lengthy prison term Monday morning in Dodge County District Court by Judge Geoffrey Hall for sexually assaulting a 5-year-old child.
Vincent Litle, 31, was sentenced by Hall to spend the next 50-65 years in the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services.
Following his arrest in early June 2016, Litle was charged with four counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child, a Class IB felony; visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct; a Class ID felony; child abuse, a Class IIIA felony; and one additional IIA felony.
Dodge County Attorney Oliver Glass said during a Monday interview with the Tribune that the state dropped all charges except the first-degree sexual assault of a child because that offense carries the weight of a 20-years to life in prison because sexual penetration occurred.
Because Litle was convicted of sexually assaulting a child in the first degree, the Good Time Law of Nebraska won’t apply until 15 years have already been served. After the 15 years have been served, with all good time, Litle will be required to spend a bare minimum of 25 additional years in prison, meaning he would be eligible for release when he is 71 years old.
“To me this is a fair sentence, because maybe a person at 71-years-of-age won’t be as apt to commit this type of horrible crime,” Glass said.
Following his arrest, Glass said that Litle was interviewed by Hooper Chief of Police Matt Schott. After having his Miranda Rights read, Glass said Litle went into great detail about the crimes he committed. During a pre-sentence investigation with probation, however, Glass said Litle tried saying that he didn’t remember exactly what happened during the time of the sexual assaults, which spanned from May 1 through June 10 of 2016.
“And now he’s trying to say he doesn’t remember any of it, and I told the court that I don’t buy that, I think he does remember it and he’s just trying to not take any sort of responsibility for his actions,” Glass said. “And when Judge Hall pronounced sentencing, he agreed with me.”
For Glass, handling any sort of case with atrocities committed against a child is difficult.
“The harm that is caused to children is so great in these cases that you just hope that maybe this little (child) will go through therapy and can grow up and this guy won’t be around and that maybe (the child) can forget that it ever happened and hopefully lead a normal life,” Glass said. “But I don’t honestly know if that can happen, and that’s the thing that is hardest to deal with in these cases. Just knowing that these little children might have to live with this the rest of their lives.”
