A high-profile case that caused turmoil in the Licking community took an unexpected turn Wednesday when a defendant in a sexual assault case entered a guilty plea to a reduced charge.
The plea in Phelps County Circuit Court occurred as the case inched closer to trial. Andrew J. Almany, who was a senior in high school when he was charged in 2004, entered a guilty plea to endangering the welfare of a child, a felony. He was placed on three years of supervised probation and ordered to pay Texas County about $3,000 in special prosecutor fees. Mike Anderson, county prosecutor, excused himself from the case earlier, and Crawford County Prosecutor Sidney Pearson was appointed to oversee the prosecution.
Almany could have received one to seven years in prison or one to 12 months in the county jail and a fine not to exceed $5,000. Almany was also ordered by Circuit Judge Tracy Storie not to have any contact with the victim and submit to chemical testing.
Almany and another man, Charles T. Clouse, who was 17 at the time of the charges, were originally charged with first-degree statutory rape and first-degree sodomy stemming from allegations of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl. Almany and Clouse were star athletes in the school district, and Almany’s father was an administrator at the time at the school. The senior Almany is no longer associated with the district.
The charges were filed after an investigation by the Texas County Sheriff’s Department with the assistance of the Missouri State Highway Patrol and an FBI crime lab in Kansas City.
A court official says Clouse’s trial is set beginning Oct. 22.