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Convicted rapist goes to prison for life
By CARRIE JOHNSON, Times Staff Writer
INVERNESS -- Calling him a "serial rapist," a judge on Friday sentenced Timothy C. Conley to life in prison plus an additional 42 years. "I would also recommend he be housed in the most secure facility the state has to offer," Circuit Judge Ric A. Howard said during Conley's brief sentencing hearing. Conley, 32, was convicted in September of raping a teenage girl nine months after being released from prison on similar charges. It took a Citrus County jury about 40 minutes to find him guilty of kidnapping, engaging in sexual acts with a minor and four counts of sexual battery. None of the women Conley is accused of raping was in court Friday. "They said they did not want to see this man again," said Assistant State Attorney David Porter. However, the women said they wanted Conley to remain behind bars "for the rest of his natural life," Porter added. The State Attorney's Office sought, and was granted, a harsher penalty because Conley committed a crime within three years of being released from prison. Under state law, because he offended again, Conley must serve all of his sentence. The life sentence stems from Conley's kidnapping charge. Howard also sentenced him to 15 years in prison on the sexual battery counts and 27 years for violating the terms of his probation for earlier offenses. In his most recent case, Conley was accused of threatening to shoot a 17-year-old Inverness girl who was walking on Croft Avenue if she didn't enter his vehicle. Conley then drove the girl to a residence on Eastside Court, where he forced her to perform oral sex and submit to intercourse, according to testimony presented at trial. Afterwards, Conley asked for the girl's pager and telephone numbers, then drove the girl to her job at a McDonald's and asked to take her to dinner that night. Conley testified the acts were consensual and that the girl became irate because he refused to pay her for sex. Conley was sentenced to a nine-year prison term in 1995 after accepting a plea deal to charges of raping a 16-year-old girl and an 18-year-old woman in separate 1993 incidents. He said the older of the two consented to sex and that the younger girl accused the wrong person. Under old guidelines that allowed inmates to earn "gain time" for good behavior, Conley served less than half his sentence. Had he been convicted under current guidelines, he would have been required to serve at least 85 percent of his sentence. Conley was released in December 1999. Porter said he thought Howard's sentence was appropriate. "That guy is a danger to society," he said of Conley. "I have no doubt that he would re-offend if he had the chance." -- Carrie Johnson can be reached at 860-7309 or cjohnson@sptimes.com .
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