The Smiths were arrested in 2021 when Cherokee County deputies, along with law enforcement from California, found evidence of sexual assaults at their home in Alto.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — An East Texas father and son were sentenced to decades in prison for sexually assaulting children in the 1980s and 1990s in California.
Theodore Smith, 90, was sentenced to 100 years in prison on Dec. 20 after pleading no contest to 11 counts of committing forcible lewd acts upon a child and three counts of lewd acts upon a child. His son, James Smith, 66, was sentenced to 23 years in prison after pleading no contest to two counts of committing lewd acts upon a child, according to the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office in California.
The Smiths were arrested in October 2021 when Cherokee County deputies, along with law enforcement from California, found evidence of sexual assaults at their home in Alto. James Smith was found in a vehicle driving back to California with child sexual abuse material.
The charges against Theodore Smith relate to an 1988 incident and charges against James Smith are from 1993. Investigators became aware of the assaults when someone purchased the home where the Smiths had lived for over 40 years.
In 2021, the new homeowner was renovating an outbuilding when explicit Polaroid photos and video tapes showing child exploitation from the 1980s and 1990s came pouring out of the wall. Investigators in California were able to find the victims, and they learned they were 5 years old when the abuse happened. That abuse continued for the majority of the first decade of their life, the DA’s Office said.
According to the district attorney’s office, statute of limitations prohibited the prosecution from filing charges against the Smiths for incidents that happened before 1988, but the DA’s Office could file charges of forcible child molestation that happened afterward. James Smith also molested another person after 2010.
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