Warsaw Man Gets One Year Probation after Reported Sexual Misconduct with Minors
Posted
Kaitie Vanderpool-
A Warsaw man will serve one year probation for a felony charge of dissemination of matter harmful to minors stemming from an August incident. Two counts of child solicitation against him were dropped this morning in Kosciusko County Superior I Court in exchange for his guilty plea. Joseph A. Sturgill, Warsaw, was sentenced by Judge Duane Huffer to one year in the Kosciusko County Jail, though the sentence was suspended and Sturgill will instead serve one year probation. According to a probable cause affidavit filed by the Kosciusko County Prosecutor’s Office, a Warsaw Police Department officer responded to a report of sexual misconduct Aug. 3 and spoke with the mother of two daughters who at the time were ages 7 and 8. The mother reportedly told officers she had recently taken her daughters to Sturgill’s apartment, who was 31 years of age at the time of the incident, to spend the night. She picked them up the next day. The following Monday, the mother received a call from her daughters’ babysitter advising that one daughter had come to her crying and alleging Sturgill had shown her and her sister sexual videos from his cell phone and had exposed himself to them. Sturgill reportedly told the girls if they told anyone what he had shown them, they would be in trouble. The girls also informed police it was not the first time Sturgill had shown them inappropriate material. Sturgill was arrested Aug. 8 on two counts of child solicitation and one count of dissemination of matter harmful to minors and held in the Kosciusko County Jail on a $2,000 bond. Sturgill will now serve one year probation and has been ordered to pay up to $200 in court and administration fees.
