AUBURN – The 11-year-old boy sat in the witness room at Androscoggin County Superior Court, his round face poking out of a yellow hooded sweatshirt.
He had followed his mother and stepfather into the room. He hadn’t left their sides all day.
Moments earlier Friday afternoon, the family was in the nearby courtroom where a jury had just convicted Raymond Samson of Lewiston on 18 sex-related crimes against children. Five of those charges involved the boy. He was 9 years old at the time.
Samson had posed him for nude photographs. He had touched the boy’s private parts. He had performed oral sex on the boy.
The boy had told the jury earlier in the week what happened during summer nights spent at Samson’s Webster Street home while his parents were working.
He has been in therapy for the past two years. So has his older brother, another of Samson’s six victims. They likely will be for years to come.
“They have rough days; they have good days,” their stepfather said.
Since that summer, nobody outside the family has been allowed to stay alone with the boys.
“No one,” their mother said. “I’ll never make that mistake again.”
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After three days of testimony, it took jurors more than nine hours over two days to reach a verdict on all 18 charges. They worked through lunch Friday, ordering out for pizza. That morning, they had asked that the testimony of one of the victims be read back to them. It took nearly two hours. At 1:40 p.m., they were summoned by Justice Ellen Gorman.
As the clerk read the litany of charges, each followed by the jury’s finding of “guilty,” Samson sat staring at her. Sporting a blue blazer, he blinked rapidly behind wire-rim glasses, hands folded in his lap. Afterward, he poured himself a cup of water.
He will continue to be held in Androscoggin County Jail pending sentencing, Gorman said.
Samson’s lawyer offered no witnesses nor evidence for his defense. Samson also declined to testify.
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Assistant District Attorney Deborah Cashman said good police work coupled with credible testimony from the victims won the case for her.
She suggested to the judge that Samson undergo a psychological examination, something she often does with sex offenders, before she recommends to the court how long he should stay in prison. It likely will take months before that happens, she said.
Samson has other charges pending, three stemming from incidents in 1999: one count of gross sexual assault and two counts of unlawful sexual contact with a boy who was 12 years old.
Cashman said the state plans to seek consecutive sentences on the six counts of sexual exploitation of a minor.
Each charge carries a minimum five-year sentence. Those charges alone would total a 30-year sentence for 54-year-old Samson. He faces a maximum of more than 70 years in prison.
Samson’s sentence could be the equivalent of a life sentence.
“It should be,” the 11-year-old boy’s mother later said. “He stole the childhoods of how many kids?”
Leonard Sharon, Samson’s lawyer, said his client plans to appeal the verdict on two grounds.
The judge erred when she allowed into the trial all of the evidence gathered by police at Samson’s two homes, Sharon said. The affidavit on which the search warrant was based didn’t support the search of Samson’s apartment, where most of the evidence was found, Sharon said.
Moreover, the judge should have divided the charges into six separate trials, one for each victim, he said. All six, five boys and a girl, testified at the trial.
A plea bargain was discussed before the case went to trial, Sharon said, but was dropped.
Her two boys were asked whether they would prefer the District Attorney’s office to settle the case out of court, their mother said.
They said, “No,” she said. They wanted to go to court.
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