Young Girl, 18, Wins Sex-abuse Case

Woman wins sex-abuse case, but attacker can't pay

January 10, 2011

LEBANON - A Warren County jury awarded $3.5 million to a teen victim of a sex crime – but the girl will be lucky to collect even $25,000, her lawyer says, because the man who molested her is now 73 years old and has few, if any, financial resources.

“This case really wasn’t about money – and that’s the honest truth,” he said. “This case was really about to help with her healing. We were ready to settle the case three weeks ago, and she said, ‘I want to tell my story.’ So I think this really will help her a great deal.”




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This is a perfect example of what they do:

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“Most sexual abuse victims never even come forward, and for those who do, it’s too painful for them to testify in a civil trial,” he said. “I’m not overjoyed because it’s just a number. But I’m happy that this is something that may help with (the victim’s) healing. She needed to know the community was on her side.”

The petite brunette, now 18 and known in court records as “Jane Doe” to protect her identity since she is still in high school, sued Gary George of Waynesville. The girl’s parents, who had been friends with George, also sued him.

The victim didn’t get to tell her story previously because George admitted to a sexual battery charge in 2009.

On Monday, the girl told the civil jury she felt the need to “tell my story and let you guys know how I feel about all this.”

George’s lawyer, Lawrence Wilkins, told jurors his client “accepted responsibility…and is paying a price.”

George is serving a two-year prison term that expires in August.

Wilkins called George a man of “simple means,” and said, “In the end, it’s a case about money, and how much.”

But the girl and Kircher told jurors that the case was helping the girl continue to talk about things she had held inside for years.

The abuse changed the victim’s personality. She had been sweet, affectionate and outgoing. After the abuse, she turned angry, standoffish and reluctant to even hug her own father.

The jury awarded her father $75,000 to compensate for the loss of his daughter’s affection as a result of the abuse; $500,000 to compensate the girl for pain and suffering. The other $3 million was listed as “punitive damages,” intended to punish George.

The girl said the abuse made her school performance suffer. “My mind was just in a different place,” she said. “I couldn’t concentrate.”

The teen said she is learning to deal with what happened since admitting what happened and continuing weekly visits with a counselor.

“(Her) healing only began when she let the demons out,” Kircher told the jury of six men and two women. “She’s continuing to try to deal with those lost years.”

Kircher didn’t suggest how much money the jury should award, but asked for fair, just and reasonable compensation.

George was a neighbor and close family friend who often baby-sat the girl and her younger sister.

When she reached age 6 or 7, she was on the couch at his home, watching “Tom and Jerry” cartoons when George lay down next to her, grabbed her hand and put it down inside the front of his pants, forcing her to touch his private parts, the girl said.

Such incidents happened repeatedly, she said.

“He made me touch him and then he touched me,” she said, and he also performed oral sex on her and attempted sexual intercourse once.

She kept the abuse secret for years. “It’s just a little game; don’t tell anybody,” the girl said George told her. “Even though it felt a little weird, I just believed him.”

The abuse continued until she was about 10 or 11.

As she grew into her teens, “It started like gnawing at my conscience, like this is not right,” she said, telling the jury she felt angry and hurt because “he tricked me when I was little.”

My hope is that anyone that reads this will realize how a young child can be abused and manipulated. The suffering never ends, it lasts a lifetime. No amount of money would ever repair the damage done. "He tricked me when I was little" That's what they do.

I am so glad this young woman finally got to tell her story. No amount of money could ever undo the harm done but at least she found her voice and in the end got some closure.