Jackson, MS—A Jackson man has been sentenced to five years after pleading guilty to exploiting a vulnerable person in Pearl, announced Attorney General Jim Hood today.

Jeffrey Jerome Rivers, 42, from Jackson, appeared in Rankin County Circuit Court today and pleaded guilty to one count exploitation of a vulnerable person.  As a result, Judge William E. Chapman, II sentenced Rivers to five years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Correction; ordered him to pay $1,000 to the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office for the cost of the investigation; $1,000 to the Mississippi Crime Victims’ Compensation Fund; and restitution in the amount of $1,200 to the victim.  Upon his release, he will serve five years on post release supervision.

The Attorney General’s investigation showed, and Rivers admitted, that he took money totaling $1,200 on three separate occasions from a 73-year-old Pearl resident who suffered from Alzheimers.  Rivers mislead the victim into believing that he had cut trees down in her yard and had her pay him compensation to which he, in fact, was not due.  The crime was uncovered when a concerned relative of the victim noticed the suspicious expenditures and alerted law enforcement.

Rivers was indicted by the Attorney General’s Office as a habitual offender having been convicted in Madison County of attempted armed robbery in April 1995 and in Hinds County in November 2000.  He is currently serving a 10 year sentence in Hinds County after being prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Office for exploiting an 88-year-old woman whom he conned into paying for work that he never completed on her home.  Today’s sentence in Rankin County is to run concurrent to the sentence he is currently serving in Hinds County.

The case was investigated by Jamie Thompson , with some initial assistance by the Pearl Police Department, and was prosecuted by Special Assistant Attorney General Marvin Sanders of the Attorney General’s Vulnerable Person Unit.