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Last updated on Thursday, March 1, 2012
(BLOOMFIELD) - 24-year-old Andrew Cooper, of Linton, was sentenced to 14 years with the Indiana Department of on a charge of child molesting. (GC DAILY WORLD)
Cooper negotiated a plea agreement Tuesday afternoon allowing him to plead guilty to a single count of child molesting, a class B felony. He was originally charged with child molesting as a class A felony. A second count of class A child molesting was dropped as part of the deal.
Greene Superior Court Judge Dena Martin sentenced Cooper to 14 years in prison with three years suspended and placed him on supervised probation for three years after he is released. He was also fined $50 and court costs; assessed a $250 Sex Assault Victim's Fee and a $100 Child Abuse Prevention Fee.
The judge also ordered that Cooper receive drug and alcohol counseling while serving his DOC sentence. He will also have to register as a sex offender after his release from prison.
Cooper is charged with incidents that occurred in August 2009 with a then 13-year-old girl. Cooper was 21-years-old at the time. The girl told police that she told Cooper no several times and tried to push him away when he tried to talk her into having sex in her mother's bedroom. The girl says she gave in later that same day and did have sex with Cooper in the back of a van that was parked next to a lake off of Park Road near Linton, according to the probable cause affidavit filed with the court.
The victim also told police that Cooper had sex with her about seven additional times in a mobile home where she lived in Bloomfield in October and November 2009. The victim's mother did not find out about the incidents until December 2010.
He has previously been convicted on May 7, 2010 to a total of three years in prison for burglary, a class C felony, as well as auto theft and receiving stolen auto parts, both class D felonies.
He was released July 25, 2010.
Copper was taken into custody by the Greene County Sheriff's Department following Tuesday's hearing and will be incarcerated in the county jail until he is transferred to a DOC facility.
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