Man who molested, impregnated 10-year-old girl claims her mother used his sperm to impregnate her
A 34-year-old Indiana man who was found guilty of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl on multiple occasions and impregnating her will be spending the rest of his life behind bars. A resident of Marion, Nicholas Deon Thrash was found guilty of 10 counts of child molestation during his jury trial in late August and was sentenced to a total of 160 years in prison.
According to the Chronicle-Tribune, at the time of the trial, Thrash faced a possible 40 years in prison for each of his 10 counts of Level 1 felony child molestation, meaning he could have been sentenced to a total of up to 400 years behind bars.
Speaking to news station WISH-TV in 2017, the victim's grandmother had explained that Thrash was someone that was known to family and someone they trusted. The girl disclosed to a Department of Child Services worker that she had been molested repeatedly by Thrash, leading to his arrest. When the charges against the 34-year-old were eventually filed in May that year, the girl was already 20 weeks pregnant.
The 10-year-old had taken the stand at the Grant Superior Court 1 to testify against her assaulter. She revealed that Thrash had molested her on at least 15 separate occasions, impregnating her during one of the assaults. Prosecutors told the court that the girl gave birth to the child in September 2017 when she was just 11-years-old.
Grant County Prosecutor Jim Luttrull said that the girl's wellbeing has been their utmost concern throughout the entire trial. "(The victim) was foremost in our mind during this case," he said. "We appreciate an enormous amount of people who offered their assistance to the victim, for CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) and all the work they provided in the case."
At the time the guilty verdict was read, Deputy Prosecutor Lisa Glancy hailed the decision but said that the damage had been done. "It’s something little compared to what (the victim) has gone through and what she will go through," she said.
During the proceedings, DNA analyst Stacy Bozinovski had also presented the results of a paternity test that concluded there was a 99.9999% probability that Thrash was the father of the baby the girl delivered.
While Thrash did not deny that he was the father, he refused to admit he had molested the victim, instead shifting blame to her mother, who was his girlfriend, and claiming that she had used his sperm to impregnate her daughter.
The 10-year-old's mother was, in fact, arrested in May 2017 following the revelation that her daughter had been repeatedly molested. She faces charges of neglect, aiding in child molesting, and assisting a criminal, all related to molesting. These charges reportedly allege that she knew about the molestations and the pregnancy and failed to report them to authorities and that she gave false information to investigators.
A Grant County prosecutor has stated that Thrash will have to spend a minimum of 132 years of his 160-year sentence in prison. He is currently incarcerated in Grant County Jail.