WAPAKONETA — A 22-year-old Dayton man charged with repeatedly raping a 12-year-old girl in St. Marys over a span of six months entered a guilty plea to reduced charges last week in Auglaize County Common Pleas Court.
Dillon Howell was arraigned April 17 and charged with 10 counts of rape, first-degree felonies, and also with three counts of pandering obscenity involving a minor for taking nude photos of the girl.
Auglaize County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Andrew Augsburger said Howell appeared in court Friday and, with Judge Mark Spees presiding, agreed to plead guilty to a single count of rape that encompassed all the incidents. He also pleaded guilty to a single count of pandering obscenity, a second-degree felony.
Augsburger said the defendant admitted to all the rapes, which occurred at a family household in St. Marys between Sept. 16, 2016, and March of this year.
Augsburger said a presentence investigation was ordered by Spees, and a sentencing date had not yet been scheduled for Howell.
Under the terms of the plea deal, Howell faces a life prison sentence with the possibility of parole after 10 years on the rape charge. The pandering obscenity plea could add up to eight years to the time Howell must wait before requesting parole, and Augsburger said he would ask the court to impose the maximum sentence allowable.
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