Ex-School Worker Gets 160 Years For Sex Abuse

Originally published by The Associated Press, July 13, 2001

WACO — A former Central Texas school worker has received sentences totaling 160 years in prison for abusing a girl over a five-year period.

Clayton Eugene Reeves was sentenced Thursday by State District Judge George Allen following his conviction on 11 counts of sexual misconduct.

Allen sentenced Reeves, a former Lorena school system maintenance worker, to maximum 20-year prison terms on each count and ordered that seven of the terms be served consecutively.

The earliest Reeves would be eligible for parole would be in about 80 years, court officials said.

Reeves, 42, rejected an 18-year plea bargain offer from prosecutors Beth Toben and Mark Parker before his trial started, said his attorney, Abel Reyna.

The defendant did not testify during his four-day trial. A jury of six men and six women deliberated just over an hour Thursday before convicting Reeves on eight counts of sexual assault and three counts of indecency with a child in the attacks on a Lorena girl.

Reeves was described by a prosecutor as "truly a sexual predator."

Before the defendant asked the judge to assess his punishment, prosecutors had intended to call the girl's younger sister as a witness and possibly show a videotape that would prove that he had abused both girls.

The younger victim did not testify. But the older sister, who called Reeves "Satan," told him that he never "broke" her.

"I am a survivor," she testified.

She then read three poems that she had written that chronicled her years of abuse.