A Rankin County college student was allowed to plead guilty to cyberstalking after the prosecution withdrew his indictment for sexual battery of a minor and statutory rape last year.
A Rankin County grand jury indicted Nicholas Webb for sexual battery and statutory rape on April 25, 2024. Pearl police arrested Nicholas on August 25, 2023 and charged him with two counts of sexual battery and one count of statutory rape. The alleged victim is a family member. The indictment stated the victim was less than 14 years old when the alleged crimes took place. The indictments provided some sickening details that can be read at this earlier post.
The police also charged his parents with contributing/neglect of a minor child. However, Rankin County Court Judge David Morrow dismissed the charges against the senior Webbs at their preliminary hearing. Nicholas Webb's father is a pastor.
Rankin County Assistant District Attorney Michael Smith filed a motion to nolle prosequi (withdraw) the indictment on October 8, 2024. Circuit Judge Steve Ratcliff approved the motion.
Webb waived indictment and pleaded guilty to one count of cyberstalking. Judge Morrow (as acting Circuit Judge) sentenced him to serve two years in prison but suspended the prison sentence.
19 comments:
I tender to the court a motion to fix.
It is good to be RICH and POWERFUL! Gotta love TWO-TIER American Justice!
So he won't have to register as a sex offender, then?
I reckon Tommy Savant earned his fees.
Good ole boy system
@10:59 AM He still loses his right to own a gun
"The alleged victim is a family member. "
So, he's still in the family with the victim, and the judge is ok with that? His parents and the victim's parents are ok with that?
Blessings - Rankin version
What a blessing!
@11:45 It is funny how you have to dance around the faxts to get your comment approved. Weird how KF wants to badly to post this story but he is heavily censoring the comments. EVERYONE in the Pearl community knows this was injustice. Money flowed and the victim was pressured. There is a real opportunity here to expose the injustice. Nope. JJ has to keep this ubder wraps. Too many wealthy bible thumping donors might get offended!
Considering there is a lawsuit against the cops in federal court, you going to pay for my lawyers if I publish stuff that has not been proven in court?
how many times have you been sued over an anonymous comment?
@12:30 There are ranches in Texas with less bullshit than your comment
You can call this what you want, but it's anything but justice.
The victim is victimized yet again.
Seems to be a college boy with a pastor as a father should be held more responsible for his actions, not less. Ignorance is never a defense, but he doesn't even qualify for it as an excuse.
Looking at the ages, Webb was about 11 and the victim was about 7 when this started and it lasted for almost 4 years, so about 15 and 11 when it ended/was stopped. While certainly not OK, it doesn't appear to be anything approaching what most think of when they hear "child molestation," i.e., an adult molesting a child. I'm not excusing such conduct in general or specifically this conduct, but there just isn't enough information to form ANY opinion on this particular case. But for those with a more-complete factset, it could be reasonable not to criminally prosecute in this particular case. As written, this statute could produce a particularly mature 13-years-and-360-days old "victim" and particularly immature exactly-to-the-day 16-year-old "molester." If all the parties in this case - the parents of the children (and that's what they were at the time), the prosecutor, and a judge - and who have a lot more facts all agree that prosecution is not the right course, maybe those of us in the cheap seats ought not to second-guess them.
My guess is that it will be very difficult to convict without the victim’s testimony. And she has been coerced to not testify against her relative. They have evidence of the cyberstalking. So his plea is for that charge. The victim gets no justice. She is being silenced.
Leave the second guessing about moral issues to the men of god in their pulpits?
"Leave the second guessing about moral issues to the men of god in their pulpits?"
There is not enough information to form an opinion about the criminal aspects of this situation, there is rarely ever enough to make moral judgements, and there is never enough perfection in those who make them anyway.
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