Man convicted of sexual abuse of a child loses appeal

A Jackson County man lost his appeal against him and had his sex crime conviction overturned.

Jacob Scott was sentenced to 85 years in prison in 2022. He was found guilty of four counts of touching a child for lustful purposes, nine counts of sexual abuse, and one count of exploitation of a child. Later that year, he was also found guilty of faking his death in Alabama and was sentenced to 21 months in prison for that crime.

He was accused of abusing a then 14-year-old girl starting in 2016 until she became pregnant in 2017 and told her sister what had happened.

Scott then fled Jackson County in 2018 and faked his death. He was found and arrested in Oklahoma in 2020.

In 2022, he was tried in Jackson County. The court denied the change of venue because it found no evidence to support his request.

Scott appealed the district court’s decision, arguing that he had been denied a change of venue and that the judgment should be overturned.

The Court of Appeals found no reversible error on the part of the Jackson County District Court and affirmed the conviction and sentence.

Jacob Scott