FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2007

CONTACT: SUELLEN PIERCE
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JIMMIE VANCE GRUBBS SENTENCED TO A TOTAL OF 20 YEARS IN PRISON

Former School Teacher Pled Guilty to 12 Criminal Counts

CHARLOTTE, NC - Jimmie Vance Grubbs, 67, a former Mecklenburg County school teacher residing in Cornelius, NC, was sentenced today to 20 years in federal prison, followed by a supervised release term of life, United States Attorney Gretchen C.F. Shappert announced today.

Joining Shappert in today’s announcement is Nathan Thomas Gray, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Operations in North Carolina.

Jimmie Vance Grubbs is currently in local federal custody where he has remained since February 23, 2006. Grubbs will remain in local federal custody until the Federal Bureau of Prisons designates a facility at which he will serve his term of imprisonment. The facility at which he will serve his term of imprisonment has not yet been determined.

After having entered a guilty plea as charged to 12 separate federal criminal counts alleging interstate transportation of a minor for the purpose of engaging in criminal sexual activity, and traveling interstate with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, in September 2006, Grubbs faced a maximum imprisonment exposure of a total of 360 years. He plead guilty to a total of 12 criminal counts, six separate counts of which each carried a mandatory minimum sentence of a five (5) year term of imprisonment. Some of the mandatory minimum sentences were ordered to be served concurrently.

U.S. Attorney Shappert said this sentence should serve as a grim warning to pedophiles and sexual predators.

According to testimony and evidence offered at today’s sentencing hearing, Grubbs, on at least six separate occasions transported five different boys, all under age 18, from North Carolina to South Carolina with the intent that the individual engage in criminal sexual activity. The offenses occurred over a period of four years. Also according to information from today’s sentencing hearing, Grubbs traveled from North Carolina to South Carolina on at least six separate occasions for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with boys under the age of 18. Again, these offenses occurred over a four year period.

Grubbs had no prior criminal history. However, at the sentencing hearing, the government presented testimony and other evidence that Grubbs had been molesting boys since the 1970's, and continued to molest boys throughout the 1980's, 1990's, and up to 2004. In all, the government presented evidence that Grubbs had molested at least six boys over the past three decades in addition to the five boys alleged in the Indictment. In handing down today’s sentence, U.S. District Judge Robert J. Conrad, Jr. noted that Grubbs’ abuse of boys took place at Grubbs’ home, at the school where he taught language arts, at various churches, where he was a Sunday School teacher and Youth Group leader, on trips to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and on trips to the University of South Carolina sporting events. Judge Conrad deemed Grubbs “the worst kind of predator.”

Shappert said, “The harsh reality for all of us is that our children’s innocence is under siege every day from sexual pedophiles, from child sexual predators, as well as from images, sounds, movies, and music. The public needs to know that in addition to dangers posed by sexual pedophiles and child sexual predators, like Jimmie Vance Grubbs, the Internet has created a marketplace where images of crime scenes are bought, sold, and traded every day. It is our duty to bring that industry down, and to bring its purveyors to justice.”

The arrest and investigation of Jimmie Vance Grubbs is the result of the joint efforts of the FBI and the Huntersville Police Department with substantial assistance from the Myrtle Beach (South Carolina) Police Department and the Forsyth County (North Carolina) Sheriff’s Office.