A Lima man will spend the next seven to 10-and-a-half years in prison after pleading guilty on charges related to the drugging of an infant he was was trusted to babysit.
Two families each held their collective breaths in Allen County Common Pleas Court on Friday as they awaited a decision of how much leniency should be given to Ethan Moore after he pled guilty to one charge of felonious assault. An emotional gallery quietly shed tears of relief by the victim's family on one side of the room and tears of despair by Moore's family on the other.
Moore, now 21, was indicted by a grand jury on charges of corrupting another with drugs, felonious assault and endangering children in July after he gave an infant Adderall and then tried to cover it up by rubbing alcohol on the child's gums.
The mother of the victim made it through a teary-eyed victim impact statement and with the support of a crime victim services advocate mustered up the strength to ask Moore why the question of bruises, scrapes and what appeared to be pinch marks were never answered. While pictures of the bruised and battered child's body appeared on the screen, the mother said she accepted his plea of giving Adderall and alcohol, but wanted to know why the injuries still hadn't been addressed.
"What has not been talked about or built into this case is that the day before this all took place, almost everyone in this courtroom saw (the infant) had no marks or injuries whatsoever — all of us want to know what happened?"
For his part, Moore tried to paint a picture of a young man tormented by drugs that had been reformed after recovery from drug addiction. He ensured the court and the victim's family nothing like that could ever happen again and that he wanted to earn the trust of everyone he had hurt back and hopes to someday not be looked at as a monster.
Judge Kohlrieser wasn't completely buying Moore's statements of remorse and cited not being completely truthful after he had just admitted to additional activities just moments before. Still, she cited he had no previous criminal history and an investigation revealed he had a likelihood of recidivism as potential mitigating sentencing factors in his favor. In the end, she chose not to decide whether Moore was genuinely remorseful or just got caught.
Moore pleads guilty to drugging infant
Jan. 8—LIMA — A Lima man will spend the next seven to 10-and-a-half years in prison after pleading guilty on charges related to the drugging of an infant he was was trusted to babysit. Two families ea...
