ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — A former member of the Overland City Council accused in 2020 of sodomizing a 7-year-old girl pleaded guilty Friday in exchange for an 18-year prison sentence.
Jared Shadley, 36, by law, will be eligible for parole after serving 85% of his prison sentence — about 15.3 years. He'll have to register as a sex offender.
The St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney's Office negotiated the plea and recommended the sentence, a Saturday morning release from the office said.
Shadley admitted to sodomizing the 7-year-old girl in 2020, the release said.
A relative of the victim called the police to report inappropriate sexual contact between the girl and the former city council member in 2020.
Court documents said Shadley touched the victim's genitals and forced her to touch his "for the purpose of arousing or gratifying" his sexual desires.
Shadley was charged with 3 counts of statutory sodomy in 2020. As part of the plea deal, the prosecuting attorney's office pursued only one of the original three counts Shadley was facing, a spokesperson said. The other two counts were dismissed.
“This guilty plea and 18-year prison sentence spares this truly courageous young person, who was victimized by a predator, the ordeal of having to revisit this traumatic episode on the witness stand,” said St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell.
The Creve Coeur Police Department investigated the case.
