Rankinen Gets 15 to 30 Years in Fairgrounds Child Rape Case

LOCK HAVEN – A former Jersey Shore resident has been sentenced to 15 to 30 years in state prison following his conviction on a child rape charge earlier this year.

Joseph Scott Rankinen, 24, appeared in Clinton County Court on Monday for sentencing after he was found guilty in June of this year in the sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl at the Clinton County Fairgrounds in May of 2011. Judge Michael Salisbury imposed the 15 to 30 year sentence. County District Attorney Dave Strouse had sought a 20 to40 year maximum sentence, telling the court that Rankinen was not fit to be free in society.

Centre County attorney Kim Muir represented Rankinen; she argued the commonwealth had delayed filing the charges until the defendant became an adult. Prior to sentencing Rankinen denied his guilt, swearing to his innocence on a bible he brought into court.

The sentence was imposed on top of a 10 to 20 year sentence imposed in 2015 by President Judge Craig Miller for Rankinen’s rape of a 4-year-old boy in Woodward Township in 2012.

Rankinen’s trial this June saw a jury of six men and six women return a guilty verdict on charges of rape, rape of a child and three related offenses stemming from the 2011 assault. The victim, now 18, had told the court she had remained silent for so many years because she had been terrorized by threats from Rankinen.

At the time of the trial Strouse had told the jury the “horrific” encounter in 2011 was such that she did not tell her mother of the attack until 2015. Rankinen was designated as a sexually violent predator after his 2015 conviction in the Woodward Township case.