A 45-year-old Memphis man will spend the rest of his life in a Mississippi prison after being sentenced to 60 years for kidnapping and sexual assault, the maximum punishment allowed under state law for his crimes. Antonio Maben was convicted after prosecutors said he held a mother and daughter at gunpoint in May 2025 and sexually assaulted the girl. Under the sentence handed down in DeSoto County, Maben will not be eligible for release until approximately age 92.
According to WREG, Maben was arrested in May 2025 after prosecutors say he held the girl's mother and daughter at gunpoint until law enforcement arrived. The DeSoto County District Attorney's Office confirmed the 60-year sentence represents the maximum statutory penalty available for his kidnapping and sexual assault convictions, according to the DeSoto County District Attorney's Office as reported by TVMO News Network. Assistant District Attorney Steven Jubera, who tried the case, said no sentence can undo the trauma inflicted but that the ruling delivers accountability and signals that Mississippi will aggressively pursue long prison terms against predators.
Sheriff's Investigation Led to Arrest
The investigation that led to Maben's arrest was carried out by the DeSoto County Sheriff's Department, with Special Agent Chad Gatewood credited by prosecutors for leading the evidentiary work in the case, per TVMO News Network. Jubera specifically commended Gatewood for taking Maben out of the free world. The case moved from arrest to conviction and sentencing in roughly 16 months, a pace prosecutors attributed to coordination between dispatchers, sheriff's deputies, and the district attorney's office.
Mississippi law sets strict boundaries on how long Maben will actually serve. Under Mississippi Code § 97-3-53, kidnapping carries a mandatory life sentence if a jury imposes it, or a term of one to 30 years in state custody if a judge determines the sentence and the jury does not fix a life term, according to Justia Law. Separately, Mississippi Code § 47-7-3 bars anyone convicted of a sex offense from discretionary parole release, requiring the full sentence to be served in physical custody — the statute prosecutors pointed to in explaining why Maben will remain imprisoned until around age 92.
Registration Requirements Follow Any Future Release
Mississippi law also imposes lifelong supervision requirements tied to convictions like Maben's. Under Mississippi Code §§ 45-33-23 and 45-33-25, anyone convicted of kidnapping a victim under 18 or of a registrable sex offense must register as a sex offender with the Mississippi Department of Public Safety upon any potential release from custody, according to the Mississippi Department of Public Safety.
Part of a Broader Local Prosecution Pattern
The sentence fits a pattern DeSoto County District Attorney Matthew Barton's office has built in recent years, aggressively pursuing out-of-state offenders — particularly Memphis residents — who commit felonies across the state line, as Hoodline previously reported. DeSoto County sits directly across from Shelby County, Tennessee, making cross-border crime a persistent public safety concern for local prosecutors. In July, the county's circuit court revoked a long-suspended sentence for a 66-year-old Memphis man and ordered him to serve nearly 20 years after he was indicted on new child sexual battery charges, with Jubera again prosecuting.
Earlier this month, DeSoto County prosecutors secured a 25-year sentence, with 15 years to serve, against a seminarian convicted of child sexual exploitation following a device-tracing investigation by the sheriff's department in Nesbit, according to the DeSoto County District Attorney's Office. Jubera, who has more than 20 years of courtroom experience and has specialized in prosecuting child welfare, domestic violence, and violent felony cases since being licensed in Mississippi in 2006, per ReliaGuide, has emerged as a central figure in the county's escalating crackdown on sexual offenses against children and vulnerable victims.
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