Gregory Sentenced to Prison for Repeat Sex Crimes

Thomas James Gregory was convicted of criminal attempt to commit aggravated sexual battery, false imprisonment, and sexual battery today in Baldwin County Superior Court after a 2-day jury trial.  The jury deliberated for 16 minutes before returning the guilty verdicts. He was sentenced this afternoon to forty (40) years with the first fifteen (15) years to be served in the Georgia Department of Corrections.

On June 6, 2024, the defendant, a 60 year old resident of Indiana, entered the Designer Tan Salon on N. Columbia Street, where the victim, a 20 year old GCSU student, was working alone.  The defendant asked about tanning memberships and to view different tanning beds.  As the victim gave him a tour of the business, the defendant touched her buttocks and put his hands down her pants and inside her underwear.  The victim was able to provide a description of him and the SUV he was driving that day.  

Lt. Phillip Vinson with the Milledgeville Police Department was able to track the defendant's vehicle to a rental car company and identified the defendant as being the one who rented the vehicle on that day.  He recognized the defendant from the store surveillance videos.  

A criminal investigator from Harris County Sheriff's Office in Houston, Texas traveled to Milledgeville to testify about a December, 1999, arrest in Bryan, Texas.  The defendant was caught peeping into a window of a woman's home.  The defendant admitted to the investigator that he saw the woman at a nearby laundromat, thought she was pretty, and followed her home.  The woman lived in a residential area that was predominantly home to college students from Texas A&M.

At trial, the State was represented by ADA Nancy Scott Moskaly and Mercer Law Intern Jordan B. Bell.  The District Attorney's Office would like to thank the Milledgeville Police Department, the GBI, the Bryan, Texas Police Department, and the Harris County Sheriff's Office in Houston, Texas for their investigation and assistance with this prosecution.