It took a Wabash County jury only about 90 minutes Thursday afternoon to convict 59 year old Glen Howder of sexually abusing a family member and instructing her to take lewd photos of herself. Howder was found guilty of the Class X felony of child porn and two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse for the incidents that occurred in September of 2017.
The trial resumed Thursday morning with state’s attorney Kelli Storckman resting the state’s case.
Defense attorney David Benney’s sole witness was Howder who denied all of the allegations against him saying he had no explanation as to how pornographic photos of young girls were found on his phone.
During her closing argument, Storckman asked jurors not to believe Howder’s denials saying “he did it and he lied”.
Binney countered during his argument to the juror that Howder was the victim of a family witch hunt led by an ex-wife who despised him.
But in the end, the juror returned the guilty verdicts. Howder will be sentenced on the Class X and two Class 2 felonies on April 25th. The Class X felony carries a prison term of between 6 and 30 years while the Class 2 felonies carry a possible prison sentence of 3 to 7 years.
