NORTHAMPTON — A former Easthampton Public Schools paraeducator has been sentenced to five to seven years in state prison for sexually assaulting two 7-year-old students at Mountain View School.
Troy Gray, 60, of Easthampton, assaulted the students between 2022 and 2023 while working as an aide in two of the school’s classrooms.
Hampshire Superior Court Judge Tracy Duncan sentenced Gray on Thursday. He had pleaded guilty to eight counts of indecent assault and battery on a child younger than 14, one count of aggravated intimidation of a witness and one count of annoying and accosting another person.
An Easthampton Police Department investigation determined that Gray repeatedly touched two students’ “private areas” while working, according to the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office.
Assistant District Attorneys Lori Odierna and Andrew Covington prosecuted the case, while Family Service Advocate Sonia Serrazina provided support and worked closely with the survivors and their families throughout the case.
The sentence was jointly recommended by the commonwealth and defense attorney Colin Keefe, of Greenfield, according to the DA’s office.
“We commend both survivors for their extraordinary bravery in coming forward and disclosing what happened to them,” Odierna said in a statement. “These were young children who placed their trust in an adult charged with their care. Their courage throughout this process has been remarkable, and this plea spares them from having to testify at trial and relive these traumatic experiences in a courtroom.”
Following his state prison sentence, Gray will be placed on supervised probation for 10 years. He will be required to register as a sex offender; complete sex offender treatment; have no unsupervised contact with children under 18 years of age; not reside, work, or have overnight stays with minors; have no contact with the victims and their immediate family members and wear a GPS monitoring device.
“We are grateful to the Easthampton Police Department’s Detective Bureau, particularly Detective Lieutenant Eric Alexander, for his thorough and dedicated work on this investigation,” Covington said in a statement. “His efforts were instrumental in bringing Mr. Gray to justice for his offenses against these two children.”
