By MICHELLE FRIEDRICH
Staff Writer
GREENVILLE — A Piedmont man recently preempted his trial by pleading guilty to molesting a pre-teen girl and was sentenced to prison.
Kaleb Shaver was sentenced Nov. 25 to 10 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections after he earlier pleaded guilty to the Class C felony of third-degree child molestation before Circuit Judge Kelly Parker, according to Wayne County Circuit Clerk Darren Garrison.
Shaver was supposed to stand trial Dec. 5 and 6 on three felonies of first-degree statutory rape and the felonies of first-degree endangering the welfare of a child and first-degree sodomy.
The complaint filed in Shaver’s case, Garrison said, had accused him of sexually assaulting a female victim, who was less than 14 years of age, between May 1 and May 31, 2018.
Garrison said the state filed a second amended information on Oct. 31, charging Shaver with the Class C felony of third-degree child molestation.
That charge replaced one of the original rape charges, with the four other counts remaining the same.
Those remaining counts, Garrison said, were dismissed at sentencing.
Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney Michael Anderson said Shaver’s plea resulted from negotiations between himself and Shaver’s attorney.
“They approached me” about a plea, Anderson said. “A lot of people do not understand prosecutors have to make difficult decisions.
“When these crimes occur, there are usually just two people in the room, and one is a child. … In this case, the child was 11.”
At trial, Anderson said, the state has to get all 12 jurors to agree that “I’ve proven (the charges) beyond a reasonable doubt, and you don’t know” what a jury’s verdict will be.
For the victims, Anderson said, a trial is difficult.
“These kids don’t want to talk about this difficult, troublesome thing” that happened in their life in front of “12 people … a courtroom of people they don’t know,” Anderson said. “That is not easy.”
With Shaver’s plea and prison sentence, Anderson said, he will have to go through the sex-offender program and serve about 50% of his sentence.
“Then, he’ll have to register as a sex offender for a very long time,” Anderson said.