Ex-Brookline, MO, Fire Chief Denied New Trial for Raping Teen Cadet

The ex-Brookline fire chief convicted of raping a former fire department cadet will not get a new trial.

Larry McConnell, 76, will be sentenced May 18 for statutory sodomy and second-degree rape.

His attorneys asked Greene County Judge Jerry Harmision for a new trial claiming the jury may have watched a portion of a confession video that was supposed to be edited out, according to the Springfield Daily Citizen. 

The victim was a junior member at the Brookline Fire Department when the incidents occurred in 2016.

The January trial wasn't the first for the former fire chief. In 2019, he was sentenced to 10 years after a judge found him guilty of several sexual offenses involving the same victim.

After serving four years, his conviction was overturned by the Missouri Court of Appeals for the Southern District, who ruled his attorneys didn't present evidence on his behalf.