OTTAWA — On Thursday in Putnam County Common Pleas Court, Trenton Lauf, 38, Ottoville, was found guilty on two charges — rape and the illegal use of a minor in nudity — related to the sexual abuse of his stepdaughter. Abuse of the child began in 2013 when she was just 10-years of age and continued sporadically over the course of the next two years.

Evidence in the trial, which began on Wednesday, relied heavily on testimony presented by the now 13-year old child. According to the girl — for purposes of the court identified as “Jane Doe, date of birth 2003” — Lauf first forced her to perform oral sex on him in December of 2013. In her testimony, the child said that the abuse continued over the course of several months during which time Lauf provided money to her, telling her to “keep your mouth shut.”

The girl further testified that she reported the abuse to her mother on several occasions, an assertion that William Kluge, Lauf’s defense attorney, returned to repeatedly over the course of the trial in an effort to undermine her testimony.

“I just want you to keep two things in mind: December of 2013 and July of 2015,” Kluge told the jury in his closing argument. “Why are those dates important. Because if the alleged misconduct occurred starting in December of 2013 and it was immediately reported, as (Jane Doe) told you, to her mom. She said her mom didn’t know what to do. You as parents, you as human beings in the real world with knowledge of this type of thing occurring everywhere, would do what when it was reported to you? You know what you would do. You would immediately report it to someone who would investigate it. And that’s what should have happened in this case, if in fact these events occurred.”

Putnam County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Todd Schroeder rebutted Kluge’s argument, asserting that it was not the child’s mother who was on trial.

“The defense was saying to you, what would you do if you were the mom, how would you have reacted,” Schroeder said. “But that’s a red herring because that’s what he wants you to talk about back in that room. The question is not what would you do if you were the mom, the question is how would you deliberate the case if this was your daughter. What could (Jane Doe) have done other than disclose it multiple times, but she wasn’t taken out of the situation and it continued. If this hadn’t happened to her, she wouldn’t have been in here on this witness stand talking about it.”

With regard to the illegal use of a minor charge, thumbnail images of the nude girl were forensically recovered from Lauf’s cell phone. The defense implied that the images were sent to Lauf by the child, an argument Schroeder adamantly refuted.

“You heard expert testimony about those images and how they got on the phone,” Schroeder said. “You were given a couple of options. One is that they were taken from some device, sent to that phone — which would have created the thumbnail — then deleted, which would have created the second thumbnail. Or option two, which is exactly what (Jane Doe) told you happened. He took the picture with his cell phone. Then it was removed to another device. After it was moved out of his phone, it was deleted, creating the two thumbnails.”

The jury deliberated the case for five hours before returning their unanimous verdict of guilty on both counts.

Lauf’s head sank as the verdicts were read. He then glared across the courtroom at the victim and her family. After Judge Randall Basinger closed the trial, Lauf swore at the court and Putnam County Sheriff’s Detective Marvin Schwiebert before being pulled from the courtroom, struggling with the sheriff’s deputies detaining him.

“The jury deliberated this case for several hours, which tells us they spent a lot of time considering each piece of evidence, carefully considering the case to make sure they were being fair to both the defense as well as the prosecution and the victim,” Schroeder said. Referring to Lauf’s final outburst, Schroeder added, “We had a good opportunity over the course of this entire prosecution to see that side of him. Quite frankly, law enforcement was anticipating an even more dramatic response than what we saw with that outburst.”

Lauf’s sentencing trial will take place sometime in the next four to six weeks. He faces a possible term of 33 years to life in prison on both charges should the court choose to run the two sentences consecutively.

Schroeder stated that the State has no plans to seek charges against the mother.