Wareham Man Found to Be Sexually Dangerous

BROCKTON (WBSM) — A Wareham man with a history of sexual assault who pleaded guilty to kidnapping and assaulting a woman outside of the town's former Walmart has been found to be sexually dangerous.

Lance Porter, 49, pleaded guilty to the charges in connection to a 2010 incident outside the Walmart store that was then located in Wareham’s Cranberry Plaza.

Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz announced that on Thursday, May 11, after a three-day trial in Brockton Superior Court, a jury deliberated for just under two hours before finding Porter to be a sexually dangerous person.

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On September 24, 2010, a woman was attacked in the Walmart parking lot. According to the D.A.’s Office, she was attempting to get into her car when a man, later identified as Porter, approached her.

“Porter grabbed the victim and threw her against a van parked next to her car,” the D.A.’s Office said. “When the victim screamed, Porter covered her mouth with his hand. The victim bit Porter’s hand twice before she was able to break free and run away.”

According to media reports at the time, when Porter covered the victim’s mouth, he also told her to “shut the (expletive) up.”

Wareham Police were contacted and because the victim was able to remember Porter’s license plate number, police were able to run his plate and locate him. When they did, they found that he had two bite marks on his hand. He was placed under arrest, and on February 13, 2017, Porter pleaded guilty to the attack.

Porter had previously been convicted of rape of a child by force, kidnapping, and threatening to commit a crime for an incident in Hanson, Massachusetts in 1994. In that incident, he approached a 14-year-old female victim walking along the road and offered her a ride. He drove off, but later returned and forced her into the truck, drove a short distance, and then raped the victim.

Porter served 12 years in prison for that incident. At the time of that trial, prosecutors tried to have him deemed a sexually dangerous person, but the judge ruled against it, according to a Brockton Enterprise article from November 2007 that pointed out a loophole in the state’s sex offender law at the time that allowed Porter to get a job next door to a gym where young girls practiced gymnastics.

He was still on probation from the 1994 rape conviction when he assaulted the woman in Wareham.