NAVASOTA MAN SENTENCED TO 23 YEARS IN PRISON FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT OF A CHILD

  

A Navasota man has been sentenced to twenty three years in prison for Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child.

Jimmy Mathis, age 81, pleaded guilty to Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child. In addition, he pleaded guilty to one count of Indecency with a Child by Contact and one count of Indecency with a Child by Exposure.

Mathis was arrested in July of 2015 after one of his great-granddaughters disclosed that she had been abused by Mathis when she was 5 or 6 years old and then again when she was 10 or 11 years old. More charges were added and he was arrested again in September 2015 after two more of his great-granddaughters said that he had also abused them when they were younger. All three girls are now in their teens.

During the course of the investigation, it was determined that several other family members had also suffered abuse over three previous decades at the hands of Mathis, but had never told anyone for fear that they would not be believed.

District Attorney Jarvis Parsons and Assistant District Attorney Kara Comte prosecuted the case on behalf of the District Attorney’s Office. Comte and Parsons released a statement saying:

“The extreme bravery of three young girls to come forward and speak about the unthinkable has ensured that this man will spend the rest of his life in prison. Cases like this often go unprosecuted because children fear being believed. Justice would not have been served without their courageousness.”