Former child care worker pleads guilty

Ex-OSU employee could get 44 years in abuse of boy.

A former Ohio State University child care worker could be sentenced to as many as 44 years in prison after admitting Monday that he sexually abused a child, beginning when the boy was in the day care program, and eventually videotaped the sex acts.

Nathan Fassnacht, 34, pleaded guilty to one count of sexual battery, three counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor and three counts of pandering obscenity involving a minor.

He will be sentenced on Oct. 13 by Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Chris Brown.

Fassnacht did not make a statement during the hearing, which the victim did not attend.

Fassnacht was an 18- or 19-year-old student employee with the university child care program, with a location on Ackerman Road, when the abuse began in 2000 or 2001, according to the indictment.

Prosecutor Ron O’Brien has said that Fassnacht, an acquaintance of the victim’s family, made contact with the child several years later and resumed the abuse.

The case was built beginning in February 2014, when investigators with the county’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force downloaded child pornography from a computer in a home that Fassnacht shared with his brother in Hilliard.

Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Rausch told the judge that the images included “homemade pornography” in which Fassnacht was seen engaging in oral sex with a young boy. Investigators were able to identify and contact the victim, who disclosed a history of abuse, she said.