NEWPORT – A 55-year-old Claremont man has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of aggravated felonious sexual assault dating back over 25 years.
In May, Lance Simons was located and arrested in Morgan, Vt., following a months-long investigation by the Claremont Police Department.
A Sullivan County Grand Jury indicted Simons in August on three charges of aggravated felonious sexual assault – pattern sexual assault and one charge of aggravated felonious sexual assault – use of force/violence.
Each charge carries a potential penalty of up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $4,000.
The indictments are in connection with two of at least six alleged victims, some with disabilities, identified by the Claremont Police investigation.
The pattern of sexual assault dates back as far as 1999 and as recently as 2020, when he was living in Claremont.
One alleged victim, now an adult, told investigators that she had been sexually assaulted by Simons for “most of her childhood from age six to approximately 15 years of age,” according to the affidavit filed by Claremont Police Detective Michelle Dunning in May.
A Facebook post from January 2013 that another alleged victim wrote to Simons, not naming him at the time, is included in the affidavit:
“Dear person I hate, words cannot describe how much I hate you,” she wrote. “What gave you the right to ruin my f—— life? … I have to take medications because of you, I’ve been in counseling because of you, I’m afraid of other men because of you. I really wish I could say this to your face and make you feel like a sick, nasty, pathetic coward, but you probably wouldn’t feel a damn thing.”
After pleading not guilty to all charges in Sullivan Superior Court on Monday afternoon, Judge James Kennedy denied bail for Simons. He is currently incarcerated at Sullivan County Jail in Unity.
Phone efforts to reach Simons’ defense attorney, Richard Guerriero of Keene, N.H.-based Lothstein Guerriero, and the prosecutor in the two separate dockets totaling the four felony charges, Sullivan County State’s Attorney Christine Hilliard, were not immediately successful on Thursday.
Simons is due back in Sullivan Superior Court for a dispositional conference on Oct. 22 at 9 a.m.
