Lenawee County judge sentences man to prison for child sex abuse

ADRIAN — A man who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting his future stepdaughter was sent to prison Friday by a Lenawee County Circuit Court judge.

Judge Michael R. Olsaver sentenced Deren William Johnson, 41, to a minimum of 32 years and one month, ordering the sentences to run consecutively on the charges to which Johnson pleaded guilty in September: first-degree criminal sexual conduct in during a crime and aggravated child sexual abuse. activity. Olsaver ordered Johnson to serve 25 to 50 years for the CSC charge and 7 years and 1 month to 25 years for the sex abuse activity. He was given 369 days credit for time already spent in jail since he was arrested last October.

Both Johnson’s attorney, Lenawee County Chief Public Defender John Glaser, and Lenawee County Chief Deputy District Attorney Allison Arnold said after the hearing that Johnson will have to serve the two minimum sentences first. Only after those are served will he be eligible for parole, Arnold said.

Olsaver exceeded the minimum sentencing guidelines that were calculated by the state’s guidelines formula on the criminal sexual conduct charge. The guidelines recommended that the minimum sentence for this charge be between nine and 15 years. He said the other two counts of criminal sexual conduct that were dismissed as part of the plea deal carried potential life sentences, and evidence presented at the plea hearing and through the pre-sentence investigation by the probation department circuit courts upheld a conviction on those charges. . He also said the crimes were committed in the 9-year-old victim’s home while she was asleep or pretended to be asleep by a man who would be her stepfather, and that sentencing guidelines do not take trauma into account which will probably affect the face for the rest of its life.

Sentences for multiple charges usually run concurrently. Olsaver said consecutive sentences were warranted in this case because of the original number of charges against Johnson, that the offenses were committed “regularly and repeatedly on an extreme number of occasions” over a two-year period, and police found that Johnson had about 550 files of child sexual abuse material — the legal term for photographs or videos of children of a sexual nature.

Twelve other charges against Johnson – including three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct where the victim was under 13 and the defendant over 17, three additional counts of aggravated child sexual activity, aggravated possession of paraphernalia child sexual abuse, four counts of using a computer to commit an offense punishable by up to 20 years and one count of using a computer to commit an offense punishable by up to 10 years – were dismissed as part of the plea agreement.

Victims’ Rights Advocate Richelle Petty from the DA read victim impact statements from both the victim and her mother. The victim, now 12, described taking a shower and seeing Johnson place his cell phone around the shower curtain, both in front of and behind her. She said she tried to take the phone from him, but he held it away from her.

He also touched her while she was in bed, which made her afraid to go to bed, Petty read. She said she was happy he went to jail, but was nervous when she found out when he would be sentenced.

“Now, I’m not afraid of him and I’m braver,” Petty said, reading from the statement.

The girl’s mother said she will never forget the night in October 2023 when she was found awake by Michigan State Police knocking on her door. He let them in, asking why they were there. She said she could never have imagined what they were investigating.

She described the psychological effects of the abuse she and her daughter experienced and other problems the case caused her. The girl’s mother asked Olsaver for justice for her daughter.

“Her innocence was taken away at 9 years old by this monster… by someone we thought we could trust,” Petty read.

Glaser told Olsaver that Johnson could have gone to trial to try to argue that there was no penetration, but he pleaded guilty because of how jury instructions in misdemeanor sexual conduct cases say that any penetration , however small it qualifies for a conviction.

Glaser said he was not making excuses for Johnson’s behavior, which he called “appalling.”

“He knows he needs to get counseling to try to deal with it,” Glaser said.

He asked Olsaver to take into account the fact that Johnson has no criminal record and suggested that at least 15 years in prison was a “pretty good sentence for what he did here” because defendants in SCC cases typically are not parole for the first time or two. before the parole board. He also asked Olsaver to serve the concurrent sentences if he opts for minimum sentences at the upper end of the guidelines.

Arnold asked Olsaver to follow the probation department’s recommendation of 25 to 50 years in prison to run consecutively because of the nature of the crimes and that in the pre-sentence investigation report, Johnson blamed the victim for what he did.

Johnson declined to make a statement in court.

Along with the prison time, Olsaver ordered Johnson to register as a sex offender for life and wear an electronic monitoring device for life and pay $166 in court costs. He said the prosecutor’s office could ask for a restitution hearing once there is a more complete accounting of the expenses the victim’s family has incurred, such as for counseling, because of the crimes.

— Contact reporter David Panian at [email protected] or follow him on X, ex-Twitter: @lenaweepanian.