Lori Pilger, Lincoln Journal Star, November 29, 2018 Lori Pilger, Lincoln Journal Star, November 29, 2018

A Lincoln judge sent a 47-year-old man to prison Thursday for a caught-on-video rape of an intoxicated 25-year-old woman in a Haymarket bar last year, calling his crime “horrifying.”

“That woman was like a rag doll. A rag doll,” Lancaster County District Judge Lori Maret told Moses Childs Jr. before sentencing him to as close to the 20-year max as she could. “She was completely unconscious.”

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On Aug. 30, 2017, employees at JJ Hooligan’s, 311 N. Eighth St., got there to find closing duties hadn’t been completed and the office in disarray.

When they watched the surveillance video, they saw what they believed was a sexual assault and called police.

The woman told police she didn’t remember anything that happened in the bar’s office. Police say she was unconscious for a “good portion” of the sexual assault, which lasted more than 30 minutes.

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Childs said he took full responsibility “for his part in the sexual encounter.”

He called it a very embarrassing and humiliating situation and apologized to his wife for breaking their vows. He said he had a few drinks that night and knew the woman at the bar had, too, but he didn’t realize how drunk she was getting.

His attorney, Stephen Kraft, said Childs had been in prison for 13 years and had gotten out two years before this incident.

“Society has changed a lot in that time,” he said. “What is cause for the concern is … when does consent stop when you start a consensual sexual encounter?”

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Maret balked at Kraft’s suggestion that Childs had been locked up so long that he hadn’t been exposed to the evolving respect for women in this country.

“What I viewed on that videotape would not have been OK 30 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago or today,” the judge said. “What you did to her was a crime.”

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“It was horrifying,” Maret said. “And if you think in any way that this victim participated willingly at any stage … then you have something seriously wrong with your thought process.”

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