Gary Landis

Gary Landis Case

UPDATE: Serial child rapist Gary Landis died in prison on June 26, 2016. Thank you to everyone who submitted a petition to help ensure he remained in prison for his full sentence. Justice has been served.

A Serial Child Rapist With A Long History Of Abuse

Gary Landis is serving a 10-25 year sentence for the crime of Rape. Landis pled guilty to one count from a five-count indictment that alleged three minor, male victims. The victim in the offense of conviction was a minor male.

Landis has a long history, from 1981 to 1994, of sexually abusing young male victims whose ages range from 10 to 16 years old. He deliberately befriended young boys whose families neglected them either emotionally or physically. Landis went out of his way in each case to provide attention and affection to his victims, as well as meeting some of their physical needs, such as buying clothes or food. In each case, he also ingratiated himself with the victims’ adult caretakers, thus gaining the confidence and trust of their families. There were a number of victims for which there were no prosecutions, usually because of negotiated plea agreements.

Landis’ criminal history began in 1960 when, at the age of twenty-three years, he was convicted and sentenced for breaking and entering. In 1981, he was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon. After he was paroled from that sentence, he was convicted in 1982 of gross sexual imposition, which resulted in revocation of his parole for the carrying a concealed weapon case. In 1985, he was convicted of gross sexual imposition and, again, after released from prison he was convicted in 1994 of rape of a male child under thirteen years, which sentence he is still serving. There was also a gross sexual imposition case against him in Miami County in Ohio 1993, however there was no resolution to that case.

A High Risk To Reoffend

According to Ohio Parole Board documents, “Landis was last heard by the Parole Board in June 2010. He had completed offense-related programming and maintained good institutional conduct.” It is apparent programming has little effect on Landis. He committed his current crime after he had already completed the sex offender treatment program when he was in prison for molesting young boys in the early 1980s. After successfully completing that program, he left prison and immediately reoffended.

On October 24, 2000 Judge Adele M. Riley ruled that Gary Landis be classified as a sexual predator, the most dangerous of all sexual offenders. A sexual predator, if released, is highly likely to commit another sex-related crime. Landis appealed this decision in 2001. The Montgomery County Court of Appeals agreed with Judge Riley and overruled his appeal.

No Parole

Gary Landis has preyed on innocent, vulnerable children for over 10 years. He placed himself in a position of trust and then assaulted numerous unsuspecting male children. Although Landis has been sent to prison multiple times and has taken the required sex offender classes, he has assaulted male children each time he has previously been released. Granting parole to Gary Landis at any point would be a slap in the face to all his victims and would pose an incredible risk to society, especially to young male children. To further the interests of justice and to protect the community, we urge the Ohio Parole Board to continue Gary Landis until he has served his maximum sentence of 25 years.