Fort Wayne, IN: A 12-year-old girl was molested by a man in Indiana. The perpetrator is a Fort Wayne resident and has pleaded guilty in court.
After pleading guilty to the assault of a 12-year-old child, a man from Fort Wayne was given a six-year prison sentence.
The 30-year-old Jesse Lee Snyder was taken into custody and faces four charges of child molestation, three of which are considered serious offenses. He faced a maximum sentence of 132 years in jail if found guilty on all charges.
In July, he entered a guilty plea on the first count, and all the subsequent charges were dropped as a result of a plea deal.
The plea deal included specified sentencing, which was six years in jail followed by three years of probation. It was Monday that Judge David Zent of the Allen Superior Court upheld the sentence.
A forensic interviewer heard the girl confess to having sex with Snyder, leading to the defendant’s arrest in 2022. She went on to detail several sexual encounters that took place in her home’s closet.
Detective Todd Garman stated in a probable cause affidavit that Snyder informed authorities that the girl would flirt with him and that his girlfriend had even instructed the victim to “get off her boyfriend.”
The offender admitted to the police that he would visit the victim’s home whenever he dropped off a friend who also frequented the location.
“She’s 12 years old, and she’s out here smoking weed and drinking,” Snyder allegedly told the cops.
One eyewitness testified that they had an intimate encounter in her closet. They emerged from the closet as soon as the girl’s father arrived to see how they were doing.
According to the complaint, Snyder and the girl then proceeded to the girl’s bedroom. When Snyder heard the girl’s father return upstairs, he got out of bed and went to the bathroom.
Afterwards, the father informed the police that he had suspicions about Snyder due of his intoxication.
The Allen County Jail has been housing Snyder since October 4, 2022.
Following his guilty plea on two charges of armed robbery in 2017, Snyder received a four-year jail term plus five years of probation.
On Monday, Judge Fran Gull of the Allen Superior Court revoked his probation and handed him a five-year jail term because the new convictions breached his probation. The court dictated that Snyder must serve both sentences in consecutive order.