15-05-2025
He already was serving one life sentence. At age 78, he got a second one for a 1976 rape.
WEST PALM BEACH — A 78-year-old man currently serving one life sentence received a second one after a jury found him guilty during his retrial in the 1976 rape of a teenage babysitter in Boca Raton.
Circuit Judge Caroline Shepherd imposed the new sentence on John MacLean during a hearing on May 12, just days after jurors convicted him on one count of armed sexual battery.
In imposing the sentence, Shepherd spoke about the victim, a woman who in October 1976 was 15 years old and tending to children at a neighbor's home when MacLean broke in and raped her twice.
"I cannot imagine a more vulnerable, innocent child and what she actually endured," Shepherd said.
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MacLean, of Pompano Beach, is serving the first life sentence in a separate case from 1977 in which a jury convicted him of sexually assaulting a young mother in Boca Raton while her two children slept nearby.
Both cases remained unsolved until 2012, when Boca Raton police said they uncovered DNA that linked MacLean to four sexual assaults. Authorities arrested him at his home.
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Police said the DNA also connected MacLean to the 1976 rapes of two sisters, who were 14 and 18 years old. However, because state lawmakers didn't lift the statute of limitations for armed sexual battery until after those attacks, prosecutors could not charge MacLean with those assaults.
MacLean had also been charged in 1981 with rapes in Miami and Boca Raton, but the cases were dismissed.
In 2018, a jury convicted MacLean in separate trials for armed sexual battery. However, he received a new trial in the 1976 babysitter case in 2020 when the Fourth District of Appeal ruled that the trial court erred by not informing the jury that it could have convicted MacLean on a less serious charge of sexual battery.
The appellate court upheld his conviction and life sentence in the 1977 case.
Shepherd rejected a request from the defense that MacLean be given a sentence of time served, instead crediting him with 4,586 days, or 12 years and 6 months, spent in jail or prison over the course of the two trials.
Julius Whigham II is a criminal justice and public safety reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at jwhigham@ and follow him on Twitter at @JuliusWhigham. Help support our work: Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Man serving life sentence gets second one in 1976 Boca Raton rape
