SALINE CO.—The Eldorado man who was charged a few months back with multiple sex crimes against children has been charged in Saline County with yet another felony.
Only this time, it doesn’t have anything to do with children, or sex crimes.
James G. Roberts, 70, was on May 17, 2013, charges with a single count of Escape, and under a rather unusual circumstance:
The charges read that while he was charged with the felony offenses of Predatory Criminal Sexual Assault of a Child and Aggravated Criminal Sexual Abuse and who was conditionally released from the Saline County jail through an electronic home monitoring detention program, violated it by driving to and going inside C&D Rebuilders in Eldorado without seeking prior approval from the state’s attorney’s office via probation, prior to leaving his home.
In other words, for whatever reason, Roberts either not supposed to be driving on his own or traveling outside his home, did both, which actions constituted an “Escape” charge.
Roberts was rearrested on that same day and held on a $10,000 cash bond.
And there he sits in the Saline County Detention Center, as his family (the ones who will still speak to him, anyway) have already ponied up several thousands of dollars for his first and second felony counts, the ones regarding sexual abuse of neighborhood kids, as young as 6 and 7.
While the county is making out well with the money family members have managed to come up with (in particular, Tina from Warner-Robbins, Georgia; see previous issues of Disclosure’s online edition for details on her), Roberts is now back under the speedy trial clock, and a September 11 jury trial has been set for the Escape charge.
The jury trial date on the first set of sex charges, in which a brother and sister accused him of molestation, is Sept. 4 at 9 a.m.
That date is the same for the second set of sex charges as well.