Her ‘father figure’ for years, MS veteran sexually assaulted teen 30 times until pregnancy, victim says
A military veteran with a Purple Heart began sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl with braces and sandy blonde hair while her mother was disabled, heavily medicated and sleeping a lot, the victim said.
The first time Jacob Blair Scott, then 40, made sexual contact with the girl, she said she was lying in bed when Scott walked in and started scratching her back before touching her breasts, sticking his hands down her pants and fondling her.
Scott, who she had known since she was 2-years-old and considered him a “protector,” would come to her bed again and again, she said.
She kept the abuse to herself because Scott threatened to harm her loved ones if she told.
The girl, now 20, testified through tears Wednesday in Scott’s sex crimes trial in Jackson County before Circuit Judge Kathy King Jackson.
Over several months beginning in 2016, the girl said Scott sexually assaulted her at least 30 times before she became pregnant and refused to follow Scott’s demands that she take morning-after pills to try to end the pregnancy or get an abortion.
She said the alleged sexual assaults occurred a couple of times a week between March 2016 and February 2017.
Afterward, she said, Scott made her wash the sheets and gave her morning-after pills to try to prevent pregnancy. She said he often followed her around to make sure she took them.
She said she tried to tell Scott she wanted him to stop what he was doing.
“He got very mad,” she said. “He scared me to the point where I didn’t know what he would do because he was very aggressive.”
She also talked about Scott would stop her from seeing her friends if he could “because he didn’t want her to go anywhere” if he wasn’t going to be around.
Now 45, Scott is facing up to life in prison if a jury convicts him on nine counts of sexual battery, four counts of touching a child for lustful purposes and one count of child exploitation.
After her biological father died when she was 8, the vicitm said she looked to Scott as more of a “father figure.”
Once she got pregnant, she said she knew she would have the baby because she “didn’t believe in abortion and no matter what, it wasn’t the baby’s fault, and I knew that.”
After the girl and another witness testified, District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath and Assistant District Attorney Justin Lovorn rested their case.
Scott testified later Wednesday, admitting to having sex with the girl and fathering her child.
“I didn’t want to go to jail’
When defense attorneys Tangi Carter and Victor Carmody Jr. called Scott to testify, he placed blame on the victim, saying she initiated the first sex act between them.
On then night of the first sex assault, Scott said, he had drunk four or five beers and was medicated and sleeping when the girl rubbed up against his genitals the first time because she “wanted attention.”
“So you were asleep when you did this?” Lovorn asked.
“She wanted me to scratch her back, “ Scott said, and he did. “I had sex with (the girl) because she came on to me.”
He said he was already distraught at the time because “my wife didn’t love me, my daughter didn’t love me.”
Once the girl got pregnant with his child, Scott said, she “had me at her mercy.”
“I didn’t want to go to jail,” he said.
‘Yes...I am guilty of that.’
While on the stand Wednesday, Scott repeatedly blamed the victim for the multiple sex assaults, or what was described as his deteriorating mental state over the personal losses in his life and other things like post-traumatic stress disorder and medical problems from injuries during his time in military combat in Iraq.
He cried when he talked about the last time he saw his daughter and how she didn’t speak to him when he called out to her.
He talked about having a mental breakdown and taking forced leave from his job at Chevron due to stress.
And he talked about how he often snuggled with the victim, and “it was nothing out of the ordinary.”
During his nearly two hours of testimony, Scott often stuttered when he spoke, something he hadn’t done in previous court appearances.
He also kept interjecting his statements despite repeated objections, mostly to slip in derogatory snippets about the alleged victim or to share more about his life in the military and how he felt like he wasn’t getting a fair shake at his trial for sexually assaulting the young girl in South Mississippi.
“Mr. Scott, you had sex with a 14-year-old girl, isn’t that right?’ Lovorn asked.
“Yes, sir,” Scott said, “I am guilty of that.”
Editor’s note: A verdict is expected in this case on Thursday afternoon.
This story was originally published June 2, 2022 at 9:18 AM.
