From The Tribune staff reports
MONTGOMERY — A convicted sex offender will not be awarded a pardon after a hearing on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2020. Leon Albert Prince, who previously lived in Trussville, was convicted of carnal knowledge in 1991.
Allison Black Cornelius said Prince raped her when she was only seven-years-old. Cornelius took to Facebook Live, ahead of the hearing, to address Leon Albert Prince.
“And I wanted to say to you personally because I know that you’re going to see this message so, it’s just me to you,” Cornelius said in the live stream. “That I am so tired of having to monitor and babysit you.”
Prince was sentenced to 30 years in prison but only served half of that.
“You got out of prison after serving 15 years of a 30-year sentence and as soon as you got out of prison in Alabama you went straight to Frazer Methodist Church in Montgomery and you volunteered to work at Mt. Meigs as a volunteer to work with male, adolescent sex offenders,” Cornelius continued. “And thank God I had gone around speaking all over the country and a lady saw your picture in her church bulletin and called me.”
At the time of his release from prison, Prince did not have to register as a sex offender with the carnal knowledge conviction. Alabama state law has now changed and he is required to register under the Sex Offender Notification Act (SORNA).
“If you’re a survivor of violent crime, anywhere in the country, you always know when you get a voicemail from pardons and parole, it’s not going to be an ice cream party,” Cornelius said.
Cornelius said acknowledgment from Prince has never happened.
“You’ve never once looked me in the eye,” Cornelius said to Prince in the live stream. “You didn’t look me in the eye in the four years we were going to court, you didn’t look me in the eye when you got out of prison and I insisted that you register as a sex offender. You wouldn’t look me in the eye in that administrative hearing. You’ve never once, not once looked me in the eye and acknowledged what you did.
During the eight-and-a-half minute video, Cornelius talked about how being molested as a child impacted her relationship with her family.
“Mom and Dad are older now and just in a blink of an eye, I didn’t even get to hug my dad anymore or do any of the things that little girls do because it was just a mess.
“I’m not saying that you don’t deserve forgiveness,” said Cornelius. “Because the one thing you didn’t take from me that entire time you were raping and molesting and torturing me over that three months in 1972, the one thing you did not kill in me was my faith.”
Cornelius said she is living her purpose despite the pain inflicted by Prince. She is the President and Chief Executive Officer at the Greater Birmingham Humane Society.
