Laporte Child Molester Gets 20-Year Sentence For Second Offense

By Stan Maddux, Tribune Correspondent
Originally published in the South Bend Tribune, May 4, 2002

LAPORTE — A 20-year sentence was handed Friday to a man who had just been released from prison for child molesting when he started having sex with a 13-year-old LaPorte girl.

Roy Kresel will serve 10 years of the sentence in prison.

He will be on probation for the balance of the term handed down in LaPorte Circuit Court as part of plea agreement convicting him of Class B felony child molesting.

According to courtroom authorities, the 24-year-old Kresel was released in October 2000 from an Illinois prison where he spent one year for committing a sex offense against a child.

He was on parole and on a sex offender registry when he came to LaPorte and met the girl three weeks after his release, according to court documents.

By Thanksgiving, Kresel and the girl had their first sexual encounter while sleeping together at a home on Indiana Avenue, according to documents.

During the next month, the girl told authorities she had sex with Kresel six or seven times at the Indiana Avenue home and at the old train depot in LaPorte's downtown, court records indicate.

At one point, the girl told police Kresel convinced her to run away with him.

Eventually, the girl reported Kresel to the authorities claiming he raped her on several separate occasions after telling him she no longer wanted to have intercourse, according to court records.

Originally, Kresel was charged with Class A felony child molesting, which carries an up to a 50-year sentence.

He has been held in the LaPorte County Jail on $50,000 bond since his arrest in May.