Repeat sex offender, 43, found guilty of new crimes
A Spokane County jury took just an hour and a half Thursday to convict chronic sex offender Terry Milton Moncrief of new crimes that are expected to put him in prison permanently.
The jury convicted Moncrief, 43, of third-degree child molestation, sexual exploitation of a minor and possession of photos of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct, as charged.
All the counts involve a boy whose father died when he was 9 years old and who met Moncrief when he was 14.
Because of a mistrial last week just when the case was about to go to a different jury, the boy had to give his testimony again this week. Superior Court Judge Neal Rielly dismissed last week’s jury after some jurors apparently discussed the case prematurely and one expressed concerns about how the case was being handled.
As he did last week, the boy told jurors that Moncrief touched him inappropriately.
Later, the boy said, Moncrief took photographs of him nude and partially nude.
The boy identified himself in some of the photographs that were shown to jurors.
He said Moncrief told him not to tell anyone, but he eventually confided in his older brother’s girlfriend.
Jurors weren’t told that Moncrief had twice been sent to prison for sexually abusing boys.
Asked why he didn’t report the abuse sooner, the boy said he had “mixed-up feelings.”
“He treated me like a son, and I didn’t know what would happen if he left,” he said.
Moncrief didn’t testify.
If Rielly agrees with Deputy Prosecutor Kelly Fitzgerald that Moncrief’s new convictions constitute a third “strike” under state law, the judge will be required to send Moncrief to prison for life without the possibility of parole.
No sentencing date was set.
Moncrief was convicted in 1984 of two counts of taking indecent liberties with a 7-year-old boy in Fayetteville, N.C.
Then, in January 1991, he pleaded guilty to one count of indecent liberties and one count of first-degree child molestation in Redmond, Wash., involving two boys who were 11 and 16.