Ex-Redding school board chair pleads guilty in sex assault case

On Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2018, former Redding Board of Education chairwoman Sara Sobel plead guilty Wednesday to risk of injury to a minor and promoting a minor in an obscene performance. She is seen outside Danbury Superior Court. less On Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2018, former Redding Board of Education chairwoman Sara Sobel plead guilty Wednesday to risk of injury to a minor and promoting a minor in an obscene performance. She is seen outside ... more Photo: Dirk Perrefort /Hearst Connecticut Media Photo: Dirk Perrefort /Hearst Connecticut Media Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Ex-Redding school board chair pleads guilty in sex assault case 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

REDDING — A former school board chairwoman pleaded guilty Wednesday to allegations she repeatedly left a young child with a convicted sex offender and took pornographic photographs and videos of the child that she delivered to the man.

Assistant State’s Attorney Sharmese Hodge said the actions by former Board of Education chairwoman Sara Sobel began more than six years ago while she was in a relationship with Stephen Overby, who she described in court documents as “a close personal friend.”

“It was around this time that she began offering this child to Overby to strengthen their own bond and for his depraved abuse,” Hodge said in court Wednesday.

Not only did Sobel know that Overby was abusing the child, but she also took photographs and videos described as child erotica. Text messages authored by Sobel that accompanied the photos elevated the images to child pornography, the prosecutor said.

“They even had a discussion about whether the images could be considered child pornography,” Hodge said. “She knew that he was using the videos for his own sexual gratification and what he intended to do to the minor.”

Sobel pleaded guilty to risk of injury to a minor and guilty under the Alford Doctrine to promoting a minor in an obscene performance.

A plea under the doctrine means the defendant questions some of the facts of the case but admits there is enough evidence for a conviction.

Sobel and her husband, Jon, were originally charged last spring with risk of injury to a minor. Authorities said they failed to comply with a state investigation into sexual assault allegations against Overby, who began living with the family two years ago.

But the couple’s case took a more serious turn in summer 2017, when prosecutors levied several additional felony charges against Sobel, including conspiracy to commit first-degree sexual assault. The charges were based on a nine-page investigative report that has yet to be made public.

At the time, Hodge told the court, “the details are now very different — 180 degrees different — than when police first began investigating this case.”

The behavior began around 2012, Hodge said, the same time that Sobel was elected to serve on the Board of Education.

She was later named chairwoman of the board in 2015 before being elected to the Region 9 Board of Education. She also served as the treasurer of the Democratic Town Committee.

When Sobel is sentenced Oct. 24 in Danbury Superior Court she faces a 30-year prison term suspended after 10 years and will have the right to argue for a reduced sentence.

Overby pleaded guilty in February to several charges including first-degree sexual assault of a minor under the age of 13, in a deal that called for a 30-year prison sentence, suspended after 18 years.

Overby was arrested in 1995 on allegations that he sexually abused his own daughter and later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in the case.

He was ordered to register on the state’s sex offender registry but failed to do so, court officials have said.

Sobel resigned from the Region 9 Board of Education and from the town Democratic committee in September on the same day she asked court officials to seal certain documents in the case and to close the courtroom for a hearing on a motion for a protective order. The motions were ultimately dropped.

The charges against Jon Sobel remain pending. The Sobels are now divorced.

dperrefort@newstimes.com