David Eugene BroomeA Sequatchie County Constable has pleaded no contest to a lesser charge of child abuse and neglect and endangerment after he was charged in 2013 for raping a child.
David Eugene Broome, 61, was arrested in September 2013 after a grand jury indicted him for allegedly having "sexual contact" with an 8-year-old girl. He was charged with one county of rape of a child.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said the incidents occurred at Broome's Signal Mountain home in December 2012 and January 2013.
Broome has been out on bond, and his trial by jury was scheduled to begin on Jan. 16, but he pleaded no contest to the lesser charges on Dec. 20, a Sequatchie County clerk told the Times Free Press.
By pleading no contest to the lesser charges, Broome will be allowed to enter court diversion, which means his record will be wiped clean as long as he successfully serves unsupervised probation for 11 months and 29 days.
Broome has been ordered to not have contact with the victim, but he will not be placed on the sex offender registry, the court clerk said. This is because the charges he plead no contest to only had to do with child abuse.
The Dunlap News reported that the decision to reduce charges was made by the family who is raising the child. They did not want to put her through a trial, the newspaper reported.
In a written statement from Broome's lawyer, Ben McGowan, said, "His choice was compassionate and respectful, but make no mistake, not motivated by fear of the evidence or the potential outcome of a trial. This no contest plea results in the charge being dismissed, as it should be, but after one year all without the necessity of putting a fragile child on the stand."
In 2013, Broome was listed as president of Mountain City Service, a plumbing company based on Signal Mountain, according to the company's website, the Times Free Press previously reported.