A local man who used to serve on Flower Mound’s city council has been sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting his granddaughter for years.
James Pierson, 82, was found guilty last Friday on four counts of indecency with a child under 14 and one continuous sexual abuse charge, according to The Dallas Morning News. He received a life sentence for the continuous sexual abuse charge and 20 years each for three of the indecency charges. He got 10 years for the last indecency charge.
Pierson abruptly quit his position on Flower Mound’s city council on May 12, 2021, just hours before a scheduled meeting. Weeks later, he was arrested for repeatedly committing sexual crimes against his granddaughter over the course of three years.
The Denton County Sheriff’s Office presided over the investigation into Pierson.
According to the Cross Timbers Gazette, Pierson first started abusing his granddaughter when she was an 8-year-old. The girl said that Pierson touched her inappropriately, made her do the same to him, showered with her, and showed her pornography.
She told investigators the abuse happened every time she was at her grandparents’ house and her grandmother was gone, and it only stopped when she was 11 and told him she would tell someone.
While the City of Dallas does not maintain public-facing running counts of crimes against children committed within the city limits, the Dallas Police Department (DPD) keeps an overall count of sexual assaults.
As of August 4, there have been 432 sexual assaults reported to DPD in 2023, 137 of which are family violence crimes, according to a department report.
DPD has been short-staffed for years now. According to a City analysis, the department needs about 4,000 officers to be able to adequately police the city. It is currently short around 900 officers.
Downtown Dallas has been feeling its share of the shortage. The neighborhood sees considerably more crime than Fort Worth’s downtown area, which reportedly has a dedicated police unit working alongside private security guards.
