COLUMBUS, Ohio — A Columbus man was sentenced for transporting a young girl across multiple states for the purpose of sexually assaulting her.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio announced that 42-year-old Joseph Gaines was given 35 years in prison on Tuesday.
Gaines pleaded guilty in November 2021 to committing a new offense against a minor as a registered sex offender and transporting a minor interstate with the intention of sexually abusing the victim.
According to court documents, Gaines transported the minor who was approximately 7 years old in the bunk of his semi-truck from Ohio to numerous other states and sexually assaulted the child repeatedly.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Gaines was on parole when he committed the assaults. He was convicted in Stark County Common Pleas Court in 2005 of raping a 13-year-old in 1998.
In 2000, Gaines was convicted in Florida of kidnapping and attempted aggravated assault after approaching a woman on the beach, placing a knife to her throat, and saying, “you’re coming with me.”
Gaines’ DNA also linked him to two other rapes, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Around the time of the 1998 rape, Gaines approached a 15-year-old on the street in Canton and threatened her with a box cutter before taking her into the woods. His DNA was found in the victim’s underwear.
In 2002, a married couple was walking on the beach in Florida when Gaines approached them with a weapon covered by a towel and forced them to an abandoned building where he raped the wife and forced the husband to watch.
“A multi-decade sentence is warranted for this defendant, whose ongoing actions reveal him to be a true predator,” said U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Parker. “Gaines spent much of the past 20 plus years – other than the times he was incarcerated – perpetrating dangerous sexual assaults. Now, he’ll spend the next 35 years in federal prison. This is the type of incorrigible conduct that prison walls are made for.”