A Bradford man, ruled a sexual predator on children by the
McKean County Court in 2004, has lost an appeal of his prison
sentence to the state Superior Court.

Leonard Shugars, 26, is serving a sentence of four to eight
years in state prison for aggravated indecent assault on a person
less than 13 years old.

Shugars, through his attorney Assistant Public Defender Doug
Garber, appealed his sentence, alleging that McKean County Judge
John Yoder, the sentencing judge, considered inadmissible
information and made his sentence greater than allowed by the
law.

On Aug. 26, 2004, Yoder imposed a sentence in the aggravated
range, meaning it was greater than the standard range that was
called for in the state sentencing guidelines.

When a judge imposes an aggravated sentence, he must give
reasons for his decision.

At the time of sentencing, Yoder explained that, in making his
decision, he considered that Shugars was determined to be a
pedophile who suffers from a mental illness, is likely to engage in
predatory behavior and is likely to reoffend.

The judge also said Shugars had admitted to molesting more than
20 children and to committing acts of bestiality. He said sending
Shugars to prison would incapacitate him from performing more
criminal acts.

In addition, Shugars was determined to be a sexually violent
predator by both Yoder and by the state Sexual Offender Assessment
Board.

In a motion to modify the sentence filed just after the sentence
was imposed, Garber argued that Yoder should not have considered
the information about prior acts.

The admissions of previous molestations were made to a
psychiatrist when Shugars himself was a juvenile, the motion read,
and Shugars was never charged or prosecuted for those alleged
offenses.

Yoder denied the motion, saying the other circumstances
discussed at Shugars’s sentencing hearing were sufficient to
warrant an aggravated sentence.

Garber appealed that ruling to the state Superior Court.

“We argued that was an abuse of the judge’s discretion,” Garber
said Tuesday. “Those reasons were impermissible.”

On March 24, the Superior Court upheld Shugars’s sentence,
agreeing that Yoder acted with proper discretion in imposing an
aggravated sentence in the case.

Garber said he still has the right to appeal the Superior
Court’s ruling, but has not yet determined what course of action,
if any, he will take.

Shugars had pleaded guilty in September of 2003 to aggravated
indecent assault.

According to testimony presented at his sentencing, between the
time of his plea and his sentencing in August of 2004, Shugars had
been volunteering for a church in Eldred.

He had, while in the company of other adults, gone door to door
handing out fliers inviting children between the ages of 6 and 12
to participate in Vacation Bible School. He did not inform anyone
at the church about the charges he was facing or that he was not to
be around children.

He also helped with games at the church.