A Roseville man convicted of sexually assaulting two juvenile girls must be resentenced after a judge failed to explain the term exceeding the guideline range and consecutive sentences, the state Court of Appeals ruled recently.

Shannon Z. Jones, 45, is serving a life sentence and three 30-60 year terms for first-degree criminal sexual conduct convictions to be served simultaneously. Those terms were to be followed by an additional term of 10 to 15 years for two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct, following his convictions at a 2023 trial in Macomb County Circuit Court.

Jones molested the girls, including penetration, in Roseville from September 2018 to December 2018 when they were 6 and 8 years old. The girls’ mother learned of the abuse in June 2019 and contacted police.

“Investigating officers learned of several accounts of similar allegations of defendant assaulting” other minors, the judges say in the appeals opinion.

The trial was presided by Visiting Judge James Chylinski, formerly of Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit; it was unclear whether he also sentenced Jones.

The three-judge appeals panel noted the minimum sentence for Jones was 25 years, and the judge’s life and 30-year sentences both exceeded the guideline range. “But the trial court failed to provide adequate explanation for the extent of its departure, particularly on the life sentence,” they say.

The sentencing judge also “provided no explanation for its imposition of consecutive sentences,” the judges wrote. “The trial court generally discussed the negative impact on the victims and their family, but it did not specifically explain if or how that related to consecutive sentencing.” The judge said Jones’ actions affected “probably 100 people,” including family members and relatives.

The judge could decline to verbalize justification for the sentences and reduce them and eliminate the consecutive nature between the group of first-degree convictions and second-degree convictions.

An assistant Macomb prosecutor “asserted that defendant had been on probation when he committed the offenses; had a pattern of ongoing, violent behavior; told the victims ‘not to tell;’ and demonstrated that he could not be rehabilitated,” the appeals panel says.

But the judge merely “‘noted’ the prosecutor’s assistance. Defense counsel objected to the prosecutor’s ‘assistance,’ and the trial court asserted that the court itself had already ‘stated enough on the record.’”

A new sentencing date has not been scheduled, according to court records.