BUFFALO, N.Y. — William Shrubsall, who fled Niagara County in 1996 to avoid justice, pleaded guilty on Thursday to charges of bail jumping and criminal contempt.
Shrubsall could serve two to six years in prison when he is sentenced in March for the bail jumping charge. This will be in addition to the prison sentence he is currently serving for first-degree sexual abuse, which he was convicted of in 1996.
Shrubsall, who is also known as Ethan MacLeod, went to an American jail last January after a judge ordered him to begin serving a sentence for sexual assault, which was handed down in absentia in 1996. He fled to Canada during that trial.
However, Shrubsall was involved with the criminal justice system even before the sexual assault.
On June 25, 1988, Marge Shrubsall had been brutally murdered. Her 17-year-old son William "Billy" Shrubsall, who was to deliver the valedictory address to his LaSalle High School classmates that day, was charged with beating her to death with a baseball bat.
Shrubsall later claimed he was an abused child who was beaten at the hands of his mother and that he snapped during an argument between the two when she became physical once again.
He eventually plead guilty to manslaughter in exchange for a sentence of five years in prison. Later, upon appeal, he was granted youthful offender status and was out after serving 16 months.
Then, the sex attack on a young women landed him on trial in Niagara County Court in 1996, during which he disappeared, leaving a five-page suicide note entailing his intent to end his life by plunging over the world-famous Niagara Falls.
Within two years Shrubsall, living under an assumed name in Nova Scotia, was charged with violently attacking three women. Classified as a dangerous offender, he was given an indefinite prison term by a Canadian judge.
After serving 20 years in a Canadian prison, Shrubsall was paroled and deported back to the United States in 2019.
Niagara County District Attorney Caroline Wojtaszek issued a statement on Thursday evening:
"From the moment I learned that this defendant was being deported from Canada for the heinous crimes he committed there, I made it a top priority to hold Mr. Shrubsall, as we all know him, responsible for his acts in absconding from the consequences of the crimes he committed here in Niagara County. I gave this defendant no other option than to plead guilty to all counts in his indictment, which he chose to do in Court today. I did everything in my power as District Attorney to ensure that this dangerous offender remain behind bars for as long as possible.
"I would like to thank the New York State Police for their thorough investigation of this matter, but also for their work in making sure this indictment was never forgotten. Their diligence kept these charges viable and allowed my office to successfully prosecute the defendant for all of the crimes he committed in our county. I will be asking for the maximum possible sentence allowed by the Court when his sentencing day comes."
Longtime defense attorney Tom Eoannou who is not involved in this case told 2 on Your Side, "There's reasons that people are sentenced and there's reasons people are punished. One is general deterrence, to show defendants that you can't just abscond to come back into the jurisdiction and not pay a price."