East Chicago man gets 87.5 years for 2014 sexual assault
A new trial ordered by the Indiana Court of Appeals shaved 12.5 years off Major Loren Wilson’s original 100year sentence.
Lake Superior
Court Judge Diane Boswell, who heard Wilson’s original case in 2014, on June 14 sentenced Wilson to 87.5 years in prison, the breakdown of which equated to 20 years for one count of criminal deviate conduct; 20 years for sexual battery; 20 years for one count of burglary; 2.5 years for one count of confinement; and 25 years for an aggravated habitual offender charge. The charges will be served consecutively, Boswell said.
A count of sexual battery, which came with a sentence of 20 years, was vacated and combined with the criminal deviate charge, Boswell said.
Defense attorney Matthew Fech argued that the sexual battery charge should be merged with the criminal deviate conduct charge because to sentence them separately would be “double jeopardy.” He also said that even though Wilson had a previous criminal history, his sentence should be only “slightly aggravated” because “anything significant will be a life sentence” for Wilson at this point.
Deputy Prosecutor Daniel Burke said that since Wilson’s first conviction in 1971, he’d “never ceased his ways” and described some of them as rape, to which Fech objected to the use of the term since Wilson wasn’t convicted of rape in this particular case.
“I would submit that Major Wilson is among the worst of the worst,” Burke said, adding that he should get the state’s prescribed 92 years “given his history and long-running disregard of the damage to women he causes.”
Deputy Prosecutor Infinity Baulos read a statement from the victim, which said Wilson “should feel real bad on how he affected our lives.” The victim continues to be fearful of being alone and has trouble developing relationships with men, and her mother takes medication, the statement said.
The victim and her mother, who were visibly happy with the sentence, declined comment after the hearing.
At times angry and audibly contesting Burke’s description of his past, Wilson ultimately declined to take the stand.
Wilson will appeal the sentence and asked the court to appoint him an appellate attorney.
The Court of Appeals of Indiana ruled last year that Wilson should receive a new trial after Wilson argued he received ineffective assistance from his counsel in his appeal. Wilson argued that his attorney for his appeal “failed to review the complete record of his trial proceedings,” which resulted in the attorney failing to argue that Wilson improperly gave up his right to public defender when he went to trial the first time, court records show.
In their decision, the Court of Appeals also questioned “the trial court’s lack of knowledge of basic constitutional law.”
“In short, during Wilson’s pretrial hearings, the trial court appeared altogether uninformed about an individual’s right to represent himself in court,” among other issues, the decision states.
Roughly five years ago, the victim, who was 25 at the time, was living with her mother in an upstairs apartment in East Chicago. Wilson moved in the apartment directly below the women, and he “takes an interest” in the mother and daughter.
On March 4, 2014, the mother said she left around 1 a.m., as she usually did, to go to work. She locked the door when she left, and she instructed her daughter to not open the door for anyone except her mother.
The daughter said she was watching TV in her room when she heard the door “creaking open” and saw the man in the ski mask. The man told her to turn off the TV and pushed her phone away from her, the daughter said. He then dragged the knife on her, she said.
The daughter said she then engaged in sexual acts with the man because she was afraid and out of “survival.”
After he left, the daughter said she didn’t call 911 “because I was scared.”
Later that morning, Wilson arrived at her apartment and gave the daughter a folded-up note telling her not to tell anyone what had happened.
When her mother came home from work, he daughter told her mother what happened, the women said. The mother said she yelled out the window to Wilson to “let him know that I know what he did.” The mother then called 911.
The daughter was taken to St. Catherine Hospital for a rape kit to be performed, prosecutors said. The mother and daughter said they gave the note from Wilson to police and identified him as the man involved from the incident.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the PostTribune.