David Randall King, 58, was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison with parole eligibility after 15 years in a child rape case where he was the caretaker.
King, of Pleasant Plain, in the Warren County village of Harlan Twp., was convicted by a county jury in March on two counts of rape and one count of gross sexual imposition. Both are felonies.
County Prosecutor David Fornshell, in a prepared statement released Tuesday afternoon, said that from January 2014 to October 2015, King sexually assaulted a (then) 5- to 6-year-old girl he was a caretaker of at the time.
After the assaults, he discouraged the child from telling anyone and told her she "wasn't brave enough to tell anyone."
Fornshell said the crimes came to light in May 2016 when the child told her foster parents about the assaults. They, in turn, reported the crimes to Warren County Children Services.
"We often hear the word 'courage' overused when describing everyday actions. In this case, a nine year-old girl sat in a courtroom in front of a judge, 12 jurors, the attorneys, and everyone else in that audience, with her rapist looking right at her, and described in exact detail what he did to her,” Fornshell said in the statement.
“THAT is courage," he said.
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