Irving Sentenced to 36 to 40 Years After 34 Years on the Run

From the Office of Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey.

Gary Allen Irving, who has been a fugitive from justice for 34 years following his conviction on rape and kidnapping charges in Norfolk Superior Court in June of 1979, was sentenced today for those crimes in Norfolk Superior Court.

Assistant District Attorney Michele Armour requested that Irving, 52, be sentenced to 40 to 50 years on the first rape victim, 40 to 50 years on or after (consecutive) on the second rape victim, and 8 to 10 years on or after those sentences on a kidnapping charge. She requested lifetime probation supervision after release ordered on the remainder of the convictions. 

Judge Kenneth J. Fishman sentenced Irving to 18 to 20 years on one rape, with 18 to 20 years on or after (consecutive) on a second rape with a 7 to 10 year concurrent sentence on the kidnapping, with 20 years’ probation on the other counts.

"Today provides, finally, some answer to the survivors of these crimes," said in said District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey in a press release. "This predator is finally going to prison for these attacks. To those women, I am personally sorry that you have waited so long for justice. I am sorry that so much strength and perseverance was asked of you. That the courage and resolve you showed testifying in 1979 resulted in decades of continuing injustice. Today does not erase that injustice, but does end it."

Morrissey said his office felt that the rapist being on the run for 34 years, the calculated brutality of these crimes, and the repeated nature of these attacks, warranted a very long prison term. 

He thanked the "dogged work of the Massachusetts State Police Violent Fugitive Apprehension Section and the local police departments from Florida to the South Shore to Maine who helped them in their long hunt."