Cranberry Plaza rapist found ‘sexually dangerous’ by jury

May 12, 2023

A jury found a Wareham man who attempted to rape a woman in Cranberry Plaza in 2010, and kidnapped and raped a 14-year-old girl in 1994, to be a “sexually dangerous person” on Thursday, May 11, according to a statement from the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office.

After a three-day trial, which included testimony from forensic pathologists, jurors deliberated for two hours before finding 49-year-old Lance Porter to be sexually dangerous.

For an offender to be “sexually dangerous,” the District Attorney’s Office must prove that they are mentally ill and therefore cannot control their sexual impulses.

Therefore, the offender can be confined for any period of time at the Massachusetts Treatment Center in Bridgewater for “care, custody, treatment and rehabilitation,” according to Massachusetts law.

Porter served 12 years in state prison for the 1994 kidnapping and rape of a 14-year-old girl in Hanson. He offered the girl a ride, and when she refused, he forced her into his pickup truck. 

At the end of his sentence, Porter was put on probation and made to register as a level 3 sex offender. He subsequently moved to East Wareham. 

At the time of his release in 2006, a judge ruled that Porter “was not sexually dangerous.”

On Sept. 24, 2010, while on probation, Porter attempted to rape a 36-year-old woman in Cranberry Plaza. The woman successfully fought Porter off by biting his hand. For this, his probation was revoked and he was sentenced to 8-10 years in state prison in 2011.