An appeals court reversed multiple convictions, including rapes, against Timothy Bruce, left. He recently pleaded guilty to a series of lesser charges and was released on time served as part of an agreed upon sentence. Attorney Perry Parsons, right, represented Bruce at the new sentencing hearing.
(Photo submitted)
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Originally sentenced to four consecutive life sentences, plus an additional 17 and half years in prison, a Marysville man is now a free man.
At a recent hearing, Timothy Allen Bruce, 54, of 413 Parkway Drive, pleaded guilty to one count each of disseminating matter harmful to children, importuning and gross sexual imposition. He was sentenced to time served, one year and eight months, placed on five years of community control and ruled a Tier 2 Sex offender.
“If you want my truth, a year and eight months for this seems insufficient for what my daughter has been through,” the victim’s father wrote in a message to the victim’s advocate. “My confidence in the system isn’t that high. My family has suffered not on the trauma of what happened, but also the trauma of the system having to revisit this multiple times.”
The father added that “I don’t think that time served was adequate. I think the system and her offender both harmed and humiliated my child.”
In March 2022, Bruce was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences without parole and another 18 years consecutive to the life sentences.
Following a three-day trial, a jury found Bruce guilty of four counts of rape, three counts of gross sexual imposition and one count each of voyeurism and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles.
The jury found that between July and August 2017, Bruce repeatedly raped a female relative, threatening her to keep her from talking about the rapes. According to court documents, the child was 7 years old when the alleged rapes began. Bruce would watch pornography with the child, then rape her. He also allegedly watched the child while they were nude.
Prosecutors called the offenses “the most heinous and serious offenses that could have occurred.”
At the time, defense attorney Cliff Valentine said Bruce had “significant issues.”
Bruce said he had a brain condition and “can’t help it.”
He said Bruce was examined by two different doctors, both of which said he was capable of telling right from wrong and to help prepare a defense.
The victim’s father, who is related to Bruce, said he thinks Bruce’s traumatic brain injury and a disability “should be taken into account.”
Prosecutors said Bruce’s risk to reoffend would be “quite high” because he took advantage of a “vulnerable population.”
As part of the sentencing hearing, the state dropped an importuning charge due to a technical error. Prosecutors felt confident they would win, but dropped the charge “simply to eliminate an a venue for appeal.”
Valentine said Bruce has always said he is innocent of the charges. He said Bruce actually rejected a deal that would have allowed him to avoid a life sentence, choosing instead to go to trial. Even before the original sentencing hearing, Bruce told his attorney he wanted to appeal.
Judge Don Fraser said consecutive life sentences were “necessary to protect the public” from Bruce.
In addition to the four consecutive life sentences, Fraser ruled Bruce is a Tier 3 Sex Offender. If he were to ever be released from prison, Bruce would need to register with the sheriff every 90 days for life.
Fraser explained the appeal process to Bruce and appointed the Union County criminal defense lawyers to handle the appeal.
As part of the appeal, Bruce argued he didn’t have effective assistance of counsel during his trial.
In court filings, Bruce argued that his counsel was deficient when they failed to object to the introduction of inadmissible exhibits or testimony on about thirty occasions.
He argued that prosecutors repeatedly used things like his past with prostitutes and his use of fetish pornography to paint him as a “sex-crazed pervert,” but those things should not have been admitted into evidence because they were not related to the crime. He said his attorney should have objected but didn’t.
He argued that his attorney should have objected to the opinion of “lay” witnesses being presented by prosecutors as expert testimony.
Bruce argued that while none of the instances in themselves may have harmed his case, they had a cumulative effect.
The appeals court agreed.
“Our analysis of the assigned errors concluded that this trial contained multiple errors that were, in several instances, significant,” according to the appeals court decision. “To establish prejudice, Timothy essentially argues that the cumulative effect of the multiple errors he identifies on appeal was to deny him a fair trial and to undermine confidence in the result of these proceedings.”
The court wrote that Bruce wasn’t just harmed by the errors but that “there exists a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s error[s], the result of the proceeding would have been different.”
“Plain and simple, the State went too far in its use of highly prejudicial and irrelevant evidence without objection by the Defense. One can only imagine how the jury considered such evidence in its deliberation on charges that had no connection,” Judge William Zimmerman in his opinion.
The appeals court reversed the guilty verdict and sent the case back to the local court.
Rather than retry the case, the prosecutor and defendant negotiated a plea agreement. Bruce pleaded guilty to the three charges — disseminating matter harmful to children, importuning and gross sexual imposition — in exchange for a negotiated sentence of one year and eight months. Because Bruce had already served 612 days in prison, more than one year and eight months in prison, the judge ruled sentence was “deemed to be completed.”
In addition, Bruce was ruled to be a Tier 2 Sexual Offender, meaning he must register with the sheriff every 180 days for the next 25 years.
Assistant County Prosecutor Kelly Hamilton said the agreement was reached “in the best interest of justice and in the best interest of the victim… who simply, as she said, wanted this case to be done.”
He said the victim and her family “understand… exactly what was happening and why it was happening.”
The father wrote that, “after considering everything, all we want is to be left out of it.”