JASON TOLBERT
WESTFIELD – A 45-year-old city man will answer charges, including rape of a child, in Hampden Superior Court after the charges he was facing in Westfield District Court were dismissed yesterday.
Jason C. Tolbert, 45, of 12 Meadow St. saw three charges of indecent assault and battery on a child younger than 14, as well as charges of rape of a child with force and assault and battery, dismissed after he was indicted and arraigned for the same offenses in superior court.
Det. Roxanne Bradley reports in a court document that the charges stem from a series of incidents which began in 2012 when Tolbert was babysitting for a then eight-year-old boy and continued until shortly before his May, 2014, arraignment on the child abuse charges.
Bradley documents a pattern of inappropriate touching and fondling of the boy’s private parts and includes one overtly sexual act which Tolbert allegedly foisted on the young boy who had been entrusted to his care.
Tolbert had been arraigned May 19 in Westfield District Court before Judge Philip A. Contant who ordered the revocation of the recognizance which had been imposed in a pending case in Springfield District Court ordering that Tolbert be held without right to bail in that case.
Contant set bail in the new case at $50,000.
Tolbert is represented by David Hoose of the Northampton law firm of Sasson, Ryan, Turnbull & Hoose.
