Reports: Sex Offender Preyed on Disabled Women

A local sex offender already in jail on a duty to inform charge had more charges filed against him last month for sexual assaulting and assaulting two women.

Leon A. Smith III, 35, of Rumford Street in Concord, was arrested at 11:58 a.m. on Sept. 3, 2015, and charged with two counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault, misdemeanor sexual assault, false imprisonment, and two counts of simple assault.

Editor’s note: This post was derived from information supplied by the Concord Police Department. It does not indicate a conviction. Click this link to find out how to get a name removed from a New Hampshire Patch police report.

According to court affidavits, on July 7, a detective spoke to a woman with a disability who alleged that Smith sexually assaulted her in June after meeting him at Market Days in Downtown Concord.

The detective spoke to the woman who accounted encounters with Smith where she reportedly attempted to reject his advances. After the first alleged attack occurred, Smith reportedly attempted to reach out to the woman and a relative, in order to dissuade her from going to police, according to the report.

“(She) stated that Leon Smith told her not to go to the police because the police know who he is and because he would lose his job and lose ‘everything’,” the detective reported.

During another incident, Smith and the woman got into an argument about money and she tried to leave but he allegedly “stood up, grabbed her arms, and put her onto his bed with his body weight.” She reported that she put her arm up to his neck but he allegedly pinned her down, trying to get her not to leave.

The relative got involved and ordered Smith to remove the woman’s contact information from his phone and a second relative took her to meet with the police because she believed that Smith had taken advantage of the woman.

Two detectives then met with Smith who was in custody on a duty to inform; change of registration charge. When asked about the woman, “he had a blank state on his face and there was a long pause before he defensively stated that she was ‘a friend.’” After some back and forth about how they met, the assault encounters, and his specific alleged actions against the woman, he reportedly admitted to sexually assaulting the woman.

“There’s nothing I can do to save my a--,” he allegedly told the detectives. “I don’t know what I was thinking … she was throwing me mixed signals. I’ll plead guilty to a rape … I’m giving up … it happened.”

To the assault incident claim, he allegedly admitted to having a temper and said it was fair to say that the woman might have been scared during the situation, according to the court affidavit.

Two witnesses also made comments to the detectives that they heard a woman crying in his room and Smith reportedly asking if she were alright. They heard her say, “Yah,” according to the report. The woman later left and they didn’t see her come back for a few days. One witness also alleged to hearing Smith become angry in his room with the woman during the second incident.

About four days after the initial investigation, the detective came across another allegation against Smith.

In this case, another woman who lived in his home stated that Smith, who was in a sex offender chaperone program, seemed out of sorts during the past month and she tried to speak with him about it.

Smith alleged that a woman was “leading him on” and was now going to dump him. The woman called the other woman who alleged that Smith was “pretty forceful in trying to get sex” and she had to kick him in the chest because he was pushy and trying to make her do things.

The detective began looking into the matter and found out from a neighbor of the woman that Smith had reportedly visited her during a three-week period between May and June. The neighbor thought that Smith might be targeting her after she found out from the Concord Housing Authority that he was a sex offender.

The detective interviewed the woman about a week and a half later. The woman stated that on the date of the assaults, she broke up with Smith because he was reportedly “very pushy” and she didn’t want to be in a relationship with him. She became scared when he allegedly hovered over her while she was sitting in a recliner and began touching her so she kicked him off and he left.

The detective filed affidavits against Smith on Aug. 11, and Aug. 21, and he was charged last month and held without bail.

Smith, according to online reports, was convicted of felonious sexual assault in July 1999, of a victim 13 or older but under 16, with an age difference of more than three years.

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