A 60-year-old man has been convicted in Norfolk Circuit Court for taking indecent liberties with a 5-year-old child this summer.
Keith Marquette Todd will be sentenced on Jan. 26.
According to court records, on Aug. 11, Norfolk Police special crimes detectives responded to a sexual assault report at an apartment in the Lamberts Point area.
The mother of the young victim told investigators that while she stepped outside for a phone call, Todd led the child to a hallway bathroom, undressed, told the child to touch him and tried to sit the victim on his lap. The child later told the mother that they tried to scream, but no one was within earshot.
When Todd and the child returned to the apartment, the mother had already returned from outside and asked where Todd took the child. Todd told the mother that he and the child had been inside the bathroom and told the child in front of the mother, “This is why you don’t go to the bathroom with strangers.”
On Nov. 27, Todd pleaded no contest, pursuant to the rule in North Carolina v. Alford, to taking indecent liberties with a child under age 15. Judge Everett A. Martin Jr. found him guilty.
In an Alford plea, a defendant maintains his innocence but admits that the evidence would be sufficient to convict if the case had gone to trial.
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Crystal Graham
