Taunton man sentenced to prison for sexually assaulting autistic woman

A 58-year-old Taunton man who indecently assaulted an autistic woman in Attleboro in 2015 was convicted at trial earlier this week in Fall River Superior Court and sentenced to serve six to eight years in state prison, Bristol County District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III announced.

According to Gregg Miliote of the Bristol County Distric Attorney’s Office, Clifford Martin was convicted by a jury of his peers after a five-day trial of indictments charging him with three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person with an intellectual disability and one count of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14 years of age.

The defendant was an employee at AMEGO in Attleboro, a facility that provides supportive day and night care to those living with autism. On September 10, 2015, the defendant was observed receiving a sex act in a van in the parking lot of an Attleboro Dollar Tree store. When approached by the witness, the defendant abruptly apologized, attempted to cover a patch that showed where he worked with his hand and drove off. The witness, though, took down the van’s license plate and called police because she felt something was not right about the woman who was performing the sex act. Police were quickly able to locate the van in the AMEGO parking lot. The responding officer noted that the hood of the van was still warm, indicating it had recently been driven.

When police went inside and spoke with the defendant, he admitted to taking the female victim to the store and claimed that he was inspecting a pimple on the victim’s head when the witness observed them. He denied having any sexual contact with the AMEGO resident, but was also heard to say, “I’m lucky if I see the light of day again.”

During a subsequent interview with police, the victim told them she had touched the defendant’s penis with lotion, that the defendant had touched her vaginal area and that she had seen his penis on other occasions. The victim made similar statement during her testimony at trial this week.

In addition to the six to eight year state prison term , Judge William Sullivan also placed the defendant on probation for an additional three years.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Casey Smith.

“The defendant took advantage of the victim’s cognitive disability and his position of employment at the facility the victim was staying at. The conduct of the defendant was manipulative and very offensive. He deserves the sentence imposed by the court,” District Attorney Quinn said.