L Walker 
Defendant Lena Jade Reid, age 21, formerly of Fort Bragg, was sentenced by the Mendocino County Superior Court last Friday (Sept. 17th) to 14 years in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).
Rather than face a local jury that had been summoned for jury duty on August 23rd, the defendant instead entered no contest pleas the Friday prior to two felonies: continuous sexual abuse of a child and using a minor to create for distribution child pornography.
A no contest plea to a felony offense is the same as a guilty plea for all purposes.
Continuous sexual abuse of a child is characterized in the Penal Code as a violent felony. As a result, the good and work time credits the defendant may attempt to earn towards her early release back to a community are limited to no more than 15 percent of the defendant’s overall sentence.
Nevertheless, upon her eventual release from state prison on parole, the defendant will be required to annually register for the remainder of her life as a convicted sex offender with the law enforcement agencies wherever she is allowed to reside.
In brief, for her own sexual gratification and the sexual arousal of others, this defendant repeatedly sexually abused her two-year old son and created pornography shared with others showing her performing sex acts on the child.
In her own defense, the mother claimed she had engaged in the sex acts and created the pornography because she was being threatened with violence by a man she met on a Dark Web site where people can anonymously post illicit content.
Fortunately, the child was rescued by law enforcement and Child Protective Services and is under the care and custody of his biological father, who is engaged in getting his son all necessary and appropriate counseling and other help for the trauma and abuse the boy sustained too early in life.
The law enforcement agencies that developed the evidence underlying this defendant’s convictions and state prison sentence were the State Parole Office in Ukiah and the Fort Bragg Police Department.
The attorney who prosecuted defendant Reid from original charging through last week’s sentencing hearing was Deputy District Attorney Eloise Kelsey.
Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Carly Dolan presided over the Friday sentencing hearing and ordered the imposition and execution of the 14-year sentence.
