Edgar Mejia will have to spend at least 25 years in prison, authorities said
FREEHOLD -- A Long Branch man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for sexually assaulting a 7-year-old girl in Eatontown, authorities said Friday.
Edgar Mejia, 55, was convicted of aggravated sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child after a month-long trial last year, said Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni.
At the trial before Superior Court Judge David Bauman in Freehold, a jury found Mejia guilty of sexually assaulting the girl when she was alone in the bedroom with him in July 2014 in Eatontown.
The girl told her mother that same night and police were notified, the prosecutor said.
Following an investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office's Special Victims Bureau and the Eatontown Police Department, Mejia was arrested July 21, 2014. He was convicted Nov. 16.
Mejia was sentenced Thursday under terms of the Jessica Lunsford Act, which went into effect May 15, 2014, and requires that anyone convicted of aggravated sexual assault to be sentenced to 25 years to life and to serve at least 25 years of the term before becoming eligible for parole, Gramiccioni said.
He said Mejia's case was the first in Monmouth County to have a sentencing under that act.
Mejia is also required to register under Megan's Law and will be placed on parole supervision for Life when he is released from prison, the prosecutor said.
MaryAnn Spoto may be reached at mspoto@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @MaryAnnSpoto. Find NJ.com on Facebook.