Charles Town Man Charged With More Than 200 Sex Offenses

By Dave McMillion, Staff Writer
Originally published in The Herald-Mail, October 19, 2001

CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. — A 37-year-old Charles Town man was charged Thursday with 208 offenses in connection with the alleged sexual assault of his 13-year-old daughter over the last six years, according to West Virginia State Police.

The man is not being named to protect the identity of the girl.

The girl told police that she was forced to perform sex acts with her father on a regular basis, according to papers filed in Jefferson County Magistrate Court. Police obtained statements from two of the girl's friends who said the girl told them her father raped her every Thursday, according to allegations in court documents.

The girl's mother left the family's house off Summit Point Road on Thursdays, which gave the girl's father time to commit the acts, court papers alleged.

Jefferson County Magistrate Gail Boober set the man's bail at $1 million after he was arraigned Thursday. Boober said that is the highest bail she has ever set against a person in her 17 years as magistrate.

The man was being held in the Eastern Regional Jail Thursday night.

The man was charged with 52 counts of incest, 52 counts of domestic battery, 52 counts of first-degree sexual assault and 52 counts of sexual abuse by a parent, according to court records.

Conviction on an incest charge carries a punishment of five to 10 years in prison; a domestic battery conviction can bring up to a year in jail; conviction on a first-degree sexual assault charge carries a punishment of 15 years to 35 years in jail, and conviction of a sexual abuse by a parent charge can bring 10 to 20 years in prison, Boober said.

Although the assaults are alleged to have occurred since 1995, only the incidents that occurred between 1996 and 1998 were covered in the investigation, state police said.