A former Democratic Mayor of a Northern California city was sentenced to seven years in prison on Thursday after being convicted in January of committing lewd acts on a 14-year-old child.
Robert Jacob, 45, pleaded no contest to six felony offenses relating ot the g sexual misconduct with a child and was found guilty, the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office said.
“The victim should be commended for coming forward to report what Mr. Jacob did,” District Attorney Carla Rodriguez said in a news release.
“His bravery in reporting Mr. Jacob’s crimes has made the community a safer place.”
Jacob met the 14-year-old victim online in 2020, prosecutors said.
He groomed the victim over the next year, and the conversations eventually turned sexual.
Jacob would send the lewd child videos and invite the victim over to his house in Sebastopol to engage in sex acts.
The former Mayor also invited another unknown man to his home to have sex with the child, prosecutors said.
The victim was 16 when he testified in court last year and said he met Jacob on the Grindr dating app, adding that Jacob knew he was underage.
Fox News reported Jacob pleaded no contest to procuring a child to engage in a lewd act with another adult, sexual penetration of a minor, engaging in a lewd act with a minor, sending lewd material to a minor, and communicating with a minor with the intent to commit a sex crime.
The former Democratic Mayor was sentenced Thursday and will serve a seven-year sentence in prison.
He must also register as a sex offender upon his release from prison.
As The Daily Fetched reported earlier this year, Jacob has built a career in the cannabis industry, with his cannabis company merging with a dispensary called SPARC.
The founder and chief executive of SPARC, Erich Pearson, said in a statement that Jacob had not been “affiliated or associated with SPARC” for several years.
He described the allegations as “horrible and unconscionable,” adding:
“These abuses of power have no place in our communities nor our society and have gone on for far too long. Our hearts and support go out to the victim and their families, and we at SPARC wish to make a clear statement that we believe victims and and survivors, and this behaviour in no way reflects on the culture and values that we hold dear.”
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