A Scottsbluff man already serving prison sentences for cheating his aunt out of a quarter-million dollar inheritance and threatening his estranged wife with a gun has now been sentenced to decades more behind bars for sexually assaulting a minor.
52-year-old Barry Neal was given sentences of 30-to-40 years in prison on each of 2 convictions for 1st-Degree Forcible Sexual Assault which will be served consecutively after he completes his earlier sentences.
Even under Nebraska’s good-time rules, Neal won’t be eligible for release from prison until at least 2055.
Court documents show Neal began sexually assaulting his young victim before she’d even turned 13, but that the girl – now 17 – didn’t come forward until 2022 because she was scared of him.
Neal’s legal problems began when he was convicted of forging his aunt’s signature after she was named in 2017 as the personal representative of her 91-year old father’s estate, which was worth $272,000.
. Neal took over when she resigned as representative, but investigators later determined he’d forged her signature on real estate documents and that almost all the money was gone. One withdrawal was for $85,000 – the amount he paid for his house.
While that case was moving forward, Neal was charged with 6 counts including terroristic threats, weapons violations, and false imprisonment for an incident at his estranged wife’s home.
Neal was released on bond, but was arrested again for missing a court date. When that story made local headlines, the family of the girl in the sexual assault case contacted authorities with her story.
She told investigators that she had been scared to speak up when she was younger, but wasn’t any more and was ready to tell the truth.
The investigation that followed showed the girl had stayed with Neal and his wife multiple times in the past and that he’d sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions..