A number of defendants are scheduled to be sentenced in Indiana County Court today, including a Clearfield County man who found guilty of aggravated indecent assault, three counts of burglary, and two counts each of criminal trespass, harassment, and theft.
In September of 2016, then-23-year-old Braheen Acres broke into an apartment in the 800 block of Wayne Avenue in Indiana. He sexually assaulting a woman who’d been sleeping on a couch there, and later in that same hour, police answered a call for a burglary in progress at an apartment one block further down the street. Acres had fled by the time police arrived, but they noticed an open door on another residence and investigated. Acres was inside and tried to escape through a second-floor window, but was taken into custody when he could not get himself off the roof.
Today’s sentencing will take into account a prosecution request that Acres be labeled a sexually violent predator under the state’s Megan’s Law.
The schedule includes nearly three dozen criminal cases, with some defendants involved in multiple cases, many of them drug cases. That includes 33-year-old Frank Douglas Gardner of Indiana, who will be sentenced in nine separate cases, most of them retail thefts, but several of which were related to drugs. Gardner was one of 26 defendants rounded up last year in a drug sweep throughout Indiana County.
Among other defendants to be sentenced will be 26-year-old Nicholas Murphy of Indiana will be sentenced for endangering the welfare of children. He was seen injecting heroin into Francise Reed as their infant sat between them in the back seat of a car. Reed was sentenced in the same case in October.
21-year-old Ryan Lee Snyder of Altoona will be sentenced for criminal use of a communication facility and open lewdness in a child pornography case.
The parents of three children will be sentenced in County Court today in a child endangerment case. 39-year-old William Dixon II pleaded guilty to three counts of felony endangering the welfare of children and 35-year-old Shannon Kay Dixon pleaded guilty to three counts of misdemeanor recklessly endangering another person. The couple reportedly locked their three children, ages 4, 6, and 8 in their rooms at their Creekside home with a portable toilet, a few toys, and no lights. They told police they did it to keep the kids from falling down the steps at night.
William Dixon will also be sentenced in a separate case, for a guilty plea to corruption of minors in a case in which more serious offenses including aggravated indecent assault of a person under the age of thirteen will not be prosecuted.
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