Old Main building in the main campus of Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, USA
A man has been sentenced to decades in prison in the rapes of four former Penn State students over a seven-year period.
Jeffrey Fields, 38, of Port Matilda was sentenced Friday in Centre County to 29 1/2 to 61 years in state prison in the assaults, which occurred between 2010 and 2017 in State College, the Centre Daily Times reported.
Fields, who worked in State College at the time, pleaded guilty in March to all but two of the charges filed against him, including felony counts of rape and sexual assault.
First Assistant District Attorney Sean McGraw said Fields was a “very sophisticated rapist” who committed “calculated, planned attacks on vulnerable women.”
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One victim said in a statement to President Judge Pamela Ruest that the defendant “changed my life completely. He changed who I am at my core.”
Defense attorney Steve Trialonas said in a sentencing memo that each of the rapes had “overtones of power and control; two aspects in Jeff’s life that were absent outside these crimes.” He said his client never challenged the evidence against him since his July 2020 arrest, never sought bail and didn't want the victims to have to testify.
Fields spoke for nearly 20 minutes, calling his crimes “unspeakable.”
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“I regret everything I’ve done. You did not deserve to go through this. I am so sorry," he said, later adding “If I could go back in time and change everything, I would."
The father of one victim said he lives in a “constant state of anger,” and no sentence would be tough enough.
“This man is the embodiment of evil,” he wrote. “May God forgive me, but I have no room in my heart for forgiveness or mercy. May he burn in hell.”
