12-01-2012, 09:43 AM
Belchertown woman, 27, denies aggravated rape of friend's 13-year-old son
By Fred Contrada, The Republican ~Massachusetts
By Fred Contrada, The Republican ~Massachusetts
NORTHAMPTON — A Belchertown woman pleaded not guilty Wednesday to having sex with an underage boy who is the son of a friend.
Amanda Wilson, 27, is charged with four counts of aggravated rape of a child. According to prosecutors, Wilson had sex with the 13-year-old boy at his Amherst house on several occasions while his mother was at work or visiting her own mother. The boy told police Wilson had showed him and another boy pornography on her laptop. Wilson said she would kill herself if anyone found out about the sex, the boy told police.
Some of the sexual encounters allegedly took place in June, when the rest of the boy's family were out of the country and he was staying with Wilson, according to prosecutors. Wilson confessed to the rapes, saying she had "daddy issues," according to court documents.
Hampshire Superior Court Judge Mary Lou Rup released Wilson on her own recognizance with the conditions that she stay away from the boy and that she not work or have unsupervised contact with anyone under the age of 16.
Defense lawyer Jonah Goldsmith persuaded Rup to drop the condition that Wilson be constantly tracked by a Global Positioning System device, maintaining that she is not a flight risk. He also said Wilson, who has lost her job, is too poor to pay for the telephone line necessary for the monitoring.
Wilson was originally scheduled to be arraigned on Nov. 14 but did not appear in court because authorities were unable to locate her. Goldsmith said she is currently living with her boyfriend in Belchertown and that she came to court Wednesday of her own volition.
"If she wanted to run, she could have by this point," he said.
Rup scheduled a pretrial hearing for June 3, 2013.