Evansville, IN – Thursday, May 29, 2013, in front of a packed court room, Vanderburgh County Circuit Court Judge Kelli Fink sentenced Jack Perkins III, age 28, after he had previously plead guilty. Perkins had plead guilty to Child Molesting – Class A Felony and Criminal Confinement – Class B Felony. Judge Fink sentenced Perkins to 45 years for the A felony and 15 years for the B felony. Those charges were found to be run concurrently. Perkins is a credit restricted felon, and will serve 85 percent of his time behind bars.
In January 2012, Perkins kidnapped a nine year old boy from his backyard before committing the felonies. The boy escaped and reported the incident to Police who located and connected Perkins to the case. Perkins also faces Federal charges to be tried later this year on 10 counts of child pornography.
In court, Judge Fink heard testimony from EPD Detective Brian Turpin, who specializes in sex crimes. Turpin discussed his conversations with Perkins after his arrest and addressed his confession to both this crime and a similar crime from earlier in Perkins’ life. Police are still searching for the victim in the other crime.
After detective Turpin finished, the state called EPD Officer Brad Evrard to the stand, who testified that in a seizure of Perkins’ computer, there were several child pornographic videos and images downloaded to it, as well as a handful of CDs with images stored on them. The state used this as an aggravating factor in the case, contesting that this was not an isolated incident.
Before both sides went to final arguments, the Victim’s Mother and Father gave powerful pleas to the court, expressing that their son would be serving a life sentence, and Perkins should be as well. They were ready for this phase of the ordeal to be over and to enable everyone involved to be able to begin to move forward.
As Vanderburgh County Nick Hermann and Defense Attorney David Lamont went back and forth, Prosecutor Hermann said “Mr. Perkins faces time on two separate felonies. I am well aware of the range the court can sentence him but personally I don’t think any of them are acceptable. The only way to protect this community is to incarcerate him.â€
After both sides rested, Judge Fink thanked everyone for their testimonies and went through what she believed to be the mitigating and aggravating factors. She sentenced Perkins to 45 years for the child molesting charge and 15 for the criminal confinement. Those charges are counted to be run consecutively. Due to the nature of the crime, Perkins must serve 85% of his sentence.
The Vanderburgh County Prosecutor’s Office would like to thank the Evansville Police Department Detectives for their tremendous work on this case as well as the Officers who searched for and located Perkins after the incident. Also thank you to the citizens who helped officers locate Perkins, and to everyone who showed up in court to support the victim in this case.
For further information on the case listed above, or any pending case, please contact Kyle Phernetton, Director of Public Relations at 812.435.5688 or via e-mail at kphernetton@vanderburghgov.org.
I really disturbs me that an appointed police chief tries to influence a judge in a criminal case such as this one.
The Evansville police, under a prior Chief, collected evidence and testimony, built a case and presented it to the Prosecutor, who then took it to trial and obtained a guilty verdict.
But that was not enough for Billy Bolin, the current chief. His ego told him to go on the social medias and try to pack the court room because, as it has been reported, he thought the judge was going to be soft on crime and hand down a token sentence.
Bolin, by his actions, was placing his judgment above that of the judge in the case.
I question whether Bolin is fit to serve as the police chief for the Evansville Police Department. Mayor Winnecke appointed Bolin and can remove him from his position. How about it Lloyd?
This case happened on January 31st, 2012. Bolin was the Chief when it happened. This case never went to trial or got a guilty verdict. Perkins pleaded guilty because he knew HE WAS GUILTY. If you do not even have those basic facts right, how can anyone consider your post to be legitimate? This is just a cheap shot at a good man. Your desire to slam anything associated with the Wennecke administration has made you look like a fool.
Chief Bolin asked the public to support the victim and his family after the pre-sentence report said Perkins was a low risk to re-offend. There were two things left off that report that the family thought shoud be included. Perkins told detectives that this WAS NOT the first time he had abducted a child and molested them. Perkins has also been federally indicted on child porn charges. Those two facts were presented yesterday and the judge aggreed that the original report was not an accurate report.
This was another case where the victim and the family took a backseat to the concerns for the suspect. A public leader stood up for them. He did so in a way that did not compromise this case in any way. Bolin was in the courtroom yesterday. Even the defense lawyer knew Bolin had not done anything wrong. If he thought that he had, he would have raised all kind of “heck” about it.
Perkins is a CHILD PREDITOR!! Should he have recieved the minimum punishment for his heinous crimes? How about it Pogo?
Pogo went out of his way to criticize Chief Bolin and Chief Bolin went out of his way to see to it that everyone involved in this case understood the facts of Perkins’ behavior. Seems to me the two men did the exact same thing.
You can take the log out of your eye now, Pogo.
What is your true reason for criticizing my posting?
I was merely pointing out that Bolin had no “skin” in this game.
Perkins was found guilty. At the time the EPD handed the file over to the Prosecutor, their job was completed. That was not enough for Bolin.
The EPD did an excellent job. That should have been the end of their involvement.
The 150 men and women of the Indiana General Assembly, plus the governor who signed the law, did what they thought was best in setting the limits for this crime. The judge was then charged with applying those sentencing guidelines.
This was not good enough for Bolin. Yes, I intended to severely criticize the chief. His ego apparently got the best of him.
Law enforcement and the judiciary are no place for egos where good judgment should prevail. But somewhere in his background, Bolin never learned that.
As to the “facts of Perkins’ behavior” they spoke for themselves in the trial testimony. Then it was up to the judge. But that was not good enough for Bolin because he thought the judge was going to be too lenient.
I still feel that Bolin should be demoted to his former rank.
But that was not good enough for Bolin.
Let me repeat since you seem to not be clear on this yet. There was NO trial. Therefore, there was no trial testimony. The recommended sentence was based on a pre-sentence report that lacked TWO very important issues. The judge was set to hand out a sentence based on that report. Bolin wanted the judge to know the victim and the family felt those TWO issues should be considered. He stood up on behalf of a traumatized 9 year old victim. Unusual, yes. Ego, hell no.
People like Perkins rely in people like you to turn the attention away from their behavior and put the spotlight on someone else. That is what was being done to the family during this whole ordeal, until Bolin stood up for them. Bolin took a stance that the community should be protected from Perkins for as long as the guidelines allowed. Why would you critisize ANYONE for wanting a child preditor locked up for the maximum amount of time possible?
Again, if Bolin had done anything inappropriate, the lawyer would have been all over it.
Let me add one more thing. Everyone in this community had “skin in this “game”, as you call it. That includes you. Perkins and people like him are a threat to every child and parent in this community.
The sooner he gets out of prison, the sooner he gets to play his “game” again. It is a shame that folks like you think ANYONE should have their voice silenced when it comes to protecting our children.
Bolin’s actions seem a little bizarre. It seems like the guy is a little too much of a hothead for such an important position. His judgment is suspect at best. Please see little old lady SWAT raid.
I said they were unusual. Does that make them wrong or make him look like a hothead? The victim, the victim’s family, the judge, and the defense lawyer did not seem to think so.
And really, only a few people out of tens of thoudsands who have learned about Chief Bolin standing up for jsutice have said anything negative. The fact that one of them is YOU, is not suprising.
I can’t believe not more is being said about this. It seems like a very bizarre, politically motivated grandstanding event. It’s clear after the flash bang geriatric woman raid that Bolin can get away with ANYTHING in this town. If that doesn’t alarm you, you need a serious wake up call. If a stunt like that doesn’t get you fired I don’t know what could. Who determines how severe of a crime deserves a flash mob facebook event at the sentencing?
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