Two defendants are scheduled for sentencing today in Indiana County Court, but for one of them, there are complications that will have an effect on his case.
Last October, 45-year-old Charles Edward Lloyd III of DuBois pleaded no contest to a single charge of aggravated indecent assault of a person less than 13 years of age in exchange for non-prosecution on 22 other offenses. He’d originally been charged in 2015 with more than 200 sexual offenses, but most of them were withdrawn before going to court. The incidents involved three children between 2009 and 2014 at a home in Canoe Township.
Lloyd was evaluated for classification as a sexual predator, but his attorney is challenging the constitutionality of the state’s Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, which is known as SORNA. The state enacted SORNA in 2012 to replace the version of Megan’s Law then in effect. In July, the state Supreme Court ruled that SORNA’s tougher sentencing guidelines could not apply retroactively to defendants whose crimes occurred before the new law took effect.
Judge Thomas Bianco has previously said that Lloyd’s sentencing today will not be postponed, but he’s now scheduled a hearing to be held first on the defense motion against the SORNA provision.
The other defendant to be sentenced today is 35-year-old David Laroy Taylor of Homer City, who pleaded guilty in four cases, to forgery, two counts of theft, and possession of drug paraphernalia. The forgery case was from last November. The other three were from last March.
