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Bristol man gets 10-year sentence for sexual assault

BRISTOL — A Bristol man will spend at least the next 10 years in jail in wake of a recent plea agreement on a felony aggravated sexual assault case in which he was accused of having sex multiple times with a 12-year-old family member.
It was last fall that authorities filed charges against Alec Morse, 22, following an investigation of allegations that Morse had repeatedly sexually assaulted the victim during a period of several months while the two were living under a common family member’s roof. Sgt. Ruth Whitney of the Addison County Unit for Special Investigations led the investigation.
It was not Morse’s first run-in with the law. On July 5, 2012, Bristol police arrested Morse, then 20, as part of a duo that had forced their way into the Living Well Care Home on Maple Street in Bristol. The pair, armed with tire irons, grabbed an employee as she was leaving the facility and forced her to re-enter to get them drugs and money, according to court documents. On May 20, 2013, Morse was sentenced to a jail term of 18 months to eight years for his role in the offense, according to court records.
But Morse was released from jail on probation on March 21, 2014, into the custody of family members residing in Bristol, according to a documents on file at the Addison County Courthouse.
The victim in the assault case told investigators that Morse had been raping and molesting her during weekends she had been spending at the common relative’s house, according to court records. The girl said she had written about the alleged assaults in a personal journal, according to Whitney’s affidavit.
The victim also told police that the contact began with Morse touching her and kissing her, then allegedly escalated to sexual intercourse soon after her graduation from the 6th grade, according to court records. She said the alleged assaults took place in her bedroom. The girl also told police she recalled having been inappropriately touched by Morse when she was 8 years old, according to court documents.
She reported that “Morse did not threaten her, but she was scared of him because he had already done stuff to her and she wasn’t sure what he would do to her after that, if he was going to hurt her or not,” Whitney’s affidavit states. Last August, the victim told police she stopped going to the common family member’s house because she did not want to be near Morse, according to Whitney.
Whitney reported interviewing Morse twice. He initially denied the victim’s sexual assault allegations, but during a subsequent interview with Whitney admitted to activity that escalated to kissing and eventually intercourse, according to court records. He denied ever having touched the victim when she was younger, according to Whitney’s affidavit.
Addison County Superior Court Judge Robert A. Mello handed down Morse’s sentence of 10 years to life during a March 2 hearing at the courthouse. Among those present were Morse’s attorney (Addison County Public Defender James Gratton), Addison County Deputy State’s Attorney Dennis Wygmans, and members of the young victim’s family.
Prior to sentencing, Wygmans said the victim’s mother read a statement criticizing Morse for his conduct against some of the weakest members of society: The elderly and a child.
Mello told the defendant that as an older family member, Morse should have been protecting the girl and not committing offenses against her, Wygmans noted.
Wygmans said Morse’s sentence will require him to serve a minimum of 10 years and he will undergo mandatory counseling while incarcerated. He will concurrently serve out six years stemming from the 2012 armed robbery offense at the Bristol nursing home, according to Wygmans.
“I believe the sentence is appropriate, given the circumstances,” Wygmans said.

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