Gazebo Gazette
Thursday morning, September 27 a twenty-six-year-old Gulfport man, Dominique Macon was sentenced this week by Second District Circuit Judge Lisa Dodson for Sexual Battery and Burglary of a Dwelling. Following his guilty plea earlier this summer, Judge Dodson scheduled a sentencing hearing for this week. After hearing arguments from both sides, Judge Dodson sentenced Macon to forty years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, with ten of those years suspended and thirty years to serve in prison.
The Sexual Battery conviction resulted from a disclosure by a nine-year-old child to his parents and to Gulfport Police that he awoke in the middle of the night to an unknown male in his bed threatening him to stay quiet. The child stated that the male, later identified as Macon, pulled down the child’s pants and assaulted the child sexually. Macon fled through the child’s window when a younger brother woke up and began screaming when he saw the intruder. “Gulfport Police were able to arrest Macon after the younger brother identified him as the suspect and after noting similarities between this crime and an earlier burglary where they were able to obtain Macon’s fingerprints,” said Assistant District Attorney Jason Josef, who prosecuted the case. Once in custody, Macon admitted entering the child’s home and assaulting him. He also confessed to entering another home in the middle of the night on a prior occasion.
During sentencing, Judge Dodson noted that the sentence was appropriate for the crimes that Macon had committed. Due to the sexual nature of the crime, Macon will be required to serve every day of the thirty-year sentence. Following his release, he will be on five years of post-release supervision and will be required to register as a sex offender for the remainder of his life.
“Protecting the children of our communities continues to be one of the most important duties of our office. We hope this brings some semblance of closure to a dark time in this young child’s life. We would like to commend the Gulfport Police Department for quickly identifying and apprehending this defendant before he could harm any more children,” said Second Circuit District Attorney Joel Smith.
