Community Corner

Concord Man, a Former Alameda County Sheriff's Deputy, Sentenced for Child Molestation

John Freeman, 53, will serve three years and is required to register as lifetime sex offender.

- Bay City News

A Concord man and former Alameda County sheriff's deputy was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for molesting a close relative throughout her childhood.

John Eric Freeman, 53, of Concord, pleaded guilty earlier this year to three counts of child molestation in exchange for the three year sentence handed down in Contra Costa County Superior Court Friday afternoon after hearing emotional statements from his family.

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Judge Brian Haynes said Freeman would be paroled for five years after his release from prison and required to register as a lifetime sex offender for the repeated sexual abuse of the close relative, which was initially reported in 2002.

Freeman, wearing a plaid shirt and black jeans, faced his family members as they addressed him from across the courtroom Friday.

Find out what's happening in Concordwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"You could have been such a better person, a better father, a better man, but you chose to be a coward and give in to your sexual perversions," said Freeman's ex-wife, who said she first learned of the abuse in 2002. "The damage you have caused will last our lifetime."

She and others who spoke during Friday's sentencing noted that Freeman had been molested by his own father as a boy.

The judge condemned Freeman's acts as "disgusting" and "downright creepy" and said he had dishonored his former role as a law enforcement officer.

Deputy District Attorney Paul Graves, who prosecuted the case, said in 2008, Freeman was charged in a police sting for attempting to make sexual contact with a minor, for which he served three months in jail.

The same year, Freeman was investigated but never charged for the reported statutory rape of a 16-year-old while he was on duty as a sheriff's deputy, Graves said.


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