Sex offender sentenced to 40 years for Florida assaults, violated Butler probation
A man previously convicted of sexual assault in Butler County was sentenced to 40 years in a Florida prison on similar charges after violating his probation and moving south, according to court documents.
Stephen J. Manning, 76, of Sarasota, Fla., was sentenced Monday afternoon, Feb. 26, by Sarasota County Judge Dana Moss on felony convictions of sexual assault and molestation.
The Florida charges were filed May 9, 2023, by the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office after a girl reported a series of assaults to a school official. Documents showed the girl disclosed she “couldn’t remember a time when it wasn’t happening.”
When charges were filed, Manning was not permitted to be outside of Butler County, as he was serving probation from a 2018 sentence after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a young girl in Cranberry Township in 1996 and 1997.
The sentence in Butler County from Judge William Shaffer in that case required Manning to serve 8 to 16 months in Butler County Prison, register as a sex offender and undergo five years of county probation.
In March 2022, Manning filed to have the final two years of his probation terminated to allow him to move to Sarasota. Judge Kelley Streib denied the motion after a brief hearing.
According to court documents, Manning committed the sexual offenses in Florida when he should have been adhering to the 2018 probation conditions. Documents recorded Manning’s probation violation in Butler County on May 10, a day after the initial charges were filed in Florida.
A hearing on the violation was scheduled for December, but was continued and has not yet been rescheduled.
Manning was first accused of sexual assault in July 2016 by a then-31-year-old woman, who disclosed to police he would assault her late at night in her room when she would pretend to be sleeping.
The assaults occurred between October 1996 and May 1997, when the woman was between 11 and 12 years old, documents showed.
Documents indicate the assaults were disclosed to the girl’s mother in 1997, but prosecution did not occur.
Manning pleaded guilty to two felony counts of aggravated indecent assault of a person less than 13 years old in connection to the assaults.
