GERMANTOWN, Tenn. — A teenager says she was groomed by a Germantown man more than 25 years older, before he went on to commit sex crimes against her.
She said she’s upset with the punishment for John Sheehan, who was then a 40-year-old man. He was a trusted family friend. She said his true intentions were kept secret as he preyed on innocence.
But he may not be off the hook just yet.
“I was 14 years old at the time. I was a little girl,” the teenager said.
We’re protecting her identity due to the nature of the crime. But with her family’s support, she wanted to tell her story.
“It kind of started when I was 15, when he was physical,” she said. “In my head, I just really wanted to scream. I didn’t want it to happen.”
The teen says in 2018, she was dating Sheehan’s son, which is how she thinks Sheehan got her number.
According to court records, she told police Sheehan started texting her in the fall of 2018. It was around the same time she and her family moved to Utah.
“The son stopped texting me, talking to me. Became more distant. And then he jumped into the picture and started texting me every morning,” said said. “(He was) checking up on me because at the time, I was very anxious. I am an anxious person.”
She told us what she told police — they communicated through text messages, Face Time and social media.
“He made me feel like he was there for me. And it just developed over time to him eventually telling me, ‘Oh I like you,’” she said. “I was just like, what?”
She kept it a secret. She said she was just too scared to say anything.
She said Sheehan made two trips to Utah to see her including one time her family was out of town.
“He took me to the hotel and his sons were in the hotel room right next to us.”
She says they engaged in sex acts and has since reported it to police in Utah.
We confirmed authorities in Utah are investigating the teen’s allegations, but all they would say is that charges are being screend both locally and federally. That’s on top of the charges he admitted to in Shelby County.
“It took a while, you know, but I realize this wasn’t right,” she said.
In July 2019, while the then-15-year-old visited Germantown, Sheehan took her to a vacant home on Dogwood Cove and admitted to raping her in the bathroom.
He met her a second time on Broad Leaf Cove, where he admitted to raping her in his car.
The police report states another parent reportedly found out what was going on, alerting the family and police.
Sheehan was indicted in January 2020.
The state performed a psychosexual evaluation. We uncovered the findings, where Sheehan claimed, “She was a friend of my son. She was at the house all the time.” He said he texted her to “help her,” and “she wanted to see me.” He continued, “This has never happened before.”
The state deemed him low risk for repeating criminal conduct, stating he is “treatable in an intensive outpatient sexual treatment program.”
Sheehan hired Leslie Ballin as his attorney. In August, he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge — two counts of aggravated statutory rape.
Sheehan apologized in court. His family vouched for his character, while the teen’s family begged for the stiffest penalty.
Judge Bobby Carter responded, “I appreciate (the victim’s) father saying she is in therapy and messed up. I don’t doubt it. I don’t know if we don’t know the impact of this case for years to come.”
He added it was a “classic situation of grooming an individual” and “no time will satisfy the family.” But, he said, Sheehan had family support, no criminal history and “this appears to be out of character.”
He gave Sheehan a four-year sentence, requiring him to serve six months behind bars, and he can serve that on the weekends, so he can remain employed and pay child support.
Sheehan is now on the sex offender registry.
Judge Carter didn’t have anything to add to his decision. He asserted in an email, “I believe I stated all my reasons for the ruling.”
“Both sides have the right to appeal my judgment. I don’t think any further comment from me would be appropriate,” Carter wrote.
The teen’s grandmother disagrees.
“Guess Judge Carter thinks magic fairy dust will be sprinkled on him and he’ll no longer be a pedophile,” said the grandmother, who we are not identifying. “I don’t think it was out of character. He was too good at it.”
The district attorney’s office wouldn’t comment on the case, and Ballin, Sheehan’s attorney, said he didn’t have much to add.
We tried to find Sheehan for his side of the story, but he was listed as “homeless” on the sex offender registry. However, after our story aired, Ballin said that was a clerical error.
Sheehan’s address is now listed in Germantown.
Utah authorities wouldn’t say how long their investigation would take.
The victim said she’s now in therapy, trying to move past it.