A registered sex offender from mid-Missouri’s Centertown has been sentenced to 60 years in prison for sexually assaulting a minor.
Cole County Circuit Judge Cotton Walker on Monday sentenced 41-year-old Dean Jason Smith to six decades in prison. Smith pleaded guilty in Cole County Circuit Court in September to rape, felony child molestation and endangering the welfare of a child.
Cole County prosecutor Locke Thompson says Smith had been assaulting the child for years. Prosecutor Thompson praises the sentencing, saying he hopes there is closure for the victim and her family in knowing Smith “will spend the rest of his life behind bars.”
Cole County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a report of a vehicle parked on the side of the road in the Centertown area in September 2022. When they approached the vehicle, Prosecutor Thompson says deputies saw Dean Smith sexually assaulting a minor child in the back seat.
Our news partner KMIZ reports Smith is a registered sex offender, and that he pleaded guilty to child molestation in 2011 in mid-Missouri’s Moniteau County
