Leaf Sentenced to Year in Jail for Molesting Stepdaughter Decades Ago

By Jeremy Blackman
Concord Monitor
December 13, 2014

http://www.concordmonitor.com/home/14784656-95/leaf-sentenced-to-year-in-jail-for-molesting-stepdaughter-decades-ago

Daniel Leaf, a former Concord man and convicted sex offender with ties to Trinity Baptist Church, was sentenced yesterday to a year in jail for having molested his stepdaughter decades ago.

Leaf, 55, of Tilton, was found guilty last month in Merrimack County Superior Court. A judge had delayed his conviction after a last-minute request by prosecutors to amend the charges from aggravated felonious sexual assault to felonious sexual assault. The defense had argued that the aggravated charges, a Class A felony, had been incorrectly applied given the timing of the crimes – 1990. The victim was 9 at that time.

Felonious sexual assault is a Class B felony worth a maximum prison sentence of seven years.

Judge Larry Smukler had allowed jurors to go forward with deliberations, but gave Leaf’s attorneys until Monday to respond in writing to prosecutor’s request. A hearing had been set for Jan. 12. They have agreed to drop their arguments and forgo future appeals in exchange for the sentence announced yesterday, which Smukler described as “on the lenient end.”

In addition to incarceration, Leaf will placed on probation for five years, has a 3?- to 7-year prison sentence suspended for 15 years, and is prohibited from unsupervised visits with children under 16. He will also be required to undergo any necessary sex offender treatment.

“The message from this case really was that the victim was listened to, and that the defendant will have consequences as a direct result,” prosecutor Wayne Coull said.

The victim, Tina Anderson, disclosed the abuse in 2010 during a rape investigation involving another member of the Concord church. Leaf was first tried in June, but that ended in a mistrial after Anderson testified to previously undisclosed details.

Anderson, who has been open about the abuse, said during the trials that she had tried to come forward as a child but was directed by church leaders not press charges. She told the court yesterday via phone that the crimes had “forever changed my life.”

Leaf, dressed in a dark suit and wearing spectacles, smiled as she spoke. He declined to address the court before the sentence was announced.

Leaf was arrested in 1991 and convicted of physically assaulting Anderson’s brother while disciplining him at their South Street home. He was also convicted in 1993 of sexual assault and indecent exposure.