An Oregon creep with a record-setting rap sheet cataloguing a staggering 166 arrests dating back to his teens was finally sentenced to life in prison on Friday.
Joshua Cory Nealy, 41, was slapped with the hefty life sentence without possibility for parole for a January 2023 arrest where he flashed a female clothing store employee and a security officer, according to a news release from the Washington County District Attorney’s Office.
The misdemeanor charge, which would usually land first-time offenders behind bars for just one year, did him in after a whopping 55 prior convictions, including seven felony charges.
Nealy was already on parole when he strolled into the Washington Square Mall in Portland and started schmoozing with a skeptical clothing store clerk.
The repeat offender sifted aimlessly through the store and collected a random assortment of clothes. He asked the female clerk for assistance while he was nude in the store’s changing room — then “opened the door fully and exposed himself to her,” the release said.
Nealy invited the woman to have sex and attempted to cajole her into the dressing room. The victim quickly flagged down a security officer, who Nealy also flashed before fleeing the store with a stolen pair of sunglasses.
Officers with the Tigard Police Department — located one town over from the mall — nabbed the registered sex offender that same day.
Before Washington County Circuit Judge Theodore Sims remanded Nealy to life in prison on Friday, his attorneys tried to argue that the repeat offender had a “compromised mental state.”
The lawyers cited a police report from Nealy’s 2007 attempted rape conviction that described how he “was using ‘crank’,” the street term for meth, “had been awake for two days and expressed his belief that his mother was the Queen of Southern England,” as reported by Oregon Live.
They also noted the defense’s sentencing memo for his first public indecency conviction, where he was apparently talking gibberish during the ordeal.
Then, the lawyers alleged that Nealy was “under the influence” during the incident at the Portland mall.
Despite their efforts, Nealy was handed the life sentence in accordance with a state statute that requires the imposition for defendants who have two prior felony sex crime convictions.
Court records obtained by Oregon Live show that Nealy still has two outstanding cases for assault and attempted assault in Washington County.
Nealy, whose criminal record dates back to when he was just 14 years old, was previously charged with attempted rape, robbery, various assaults, failure to report as a sex offender and more.
Read the full article here
