Richard Long - A Repeat Sex Offender - Life in prison selling drugs in the park - near children

Drug Dealer AND Sex Offender

"Child rapists selling drugs next to a park is not going to be tolerated."

HERNANDO - A three-time convicted sex offender has been sentenced to life in prison for selling drugs near a park.

Richard Long, 52, received the sentence following a trial in DeSoto County Circuit Court that ended on Thursday with jurors returning a guilty verdict against him for the sale of Diazepam.

They deliberated for some 15 minutes after being presented with video evidence that showed Long dealing the drug, most commonly known as valium, from a travel trailer in the Candlelight Mobile Home Estates adjacent to Olive Branch City Park.

Assistant District Attorney Smith Murphey said that Long's proximity to the park, in itself, constituted a violation of his probation on convictions from his home state of Colorado.

Long had recently spent 12 years in a Colorado prison, he said, with prior convictions including two for sexual battery of a child and one for aggravated incest with his own child.

Those convictions led to Long being sentenced in DeSoto County as an habitual offender, meaning he will not have a chance for parole or earned release from prison.

"I think we made the world a safer place," Murphy said about the local conviction and sentence, noting that jurors had no knowledge of Long's prior criminal history. "Child rapists selling drugs next to a park is not going to be tolerated."

"25% of all sex offenders re-offend within 15 years"

.........Sarah Tofte