A 61-year-old McQueeney man was sentenced to 55 years in prison for sexually abusing a child and indecency with a child on Wednesday.
It took a Guadalupe County jury less than an hour to convict James Glessner on a charge of continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14 and two counts of indecency with a child by exposure.
Glessner went to 25th Judicial District Judge Bill Old for his sentence, who gave the man 35 years on the charge of continuous sexual abuse and 10 years each on both charges of indecency.
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“Because it was continuous sexual assault of a child, he will have to do 25 years before he is eligible for parole,” District Attorney Heather McMinn said. “With the defendant’s age, he will more than likely spend the rest of his life in prison. Old’s sentence of 35 years is a fair verdict in this case.”
Glessner was arrested in July 2012 for indecency with a child after an outcry was made that he had exposed himself repeatedly to a young girl, Guadalupe County Sheriff’s Investigator Wayne Lehman said.
“We got a report from a father saying that his daughter made an outcry,” he said. “They went to CPS (Child Protective Services), and we took the report. The little girl outlined numerous encounters.”
Investigators obtained enough information for the DA’s office to pursue other charges, including the more serious continuous sexual abuse of a child, Lehman said.
“During the course of the investigation several sexual related offences were detected; however, we only obtained one arrest warrant at the time,” he said.
Over the course of three days, jurors heard testimony from numerous witnesses — including the victim, Assistant District Attorney Terri Laird said.
“She had a really hard time testifying against him, but Christy Williams did such a great job of interviewing that the she was able to build a rapport with the child and make the child comfortable enough to be able to do that,” she said. “She made the victim feel safe and comfortable in the environment and was able to tell her story.”
Because of close proximity of the child and the suspect living in the same area, Laird said the family moved to help overcome the trauma.
“The hardest thing has been that this family has moved out of state because of this and to put this behind them,” she said. “They haven’t been back for three years. It was very hard on them, very difficult for the victim to feel comfortable testifying about it. The collateral damage is another one of those consequences that people don’t think about. You have not only the mental damage to the victim but to the entire family.”
McMinn commended the sheriff’s office and the Children’s Advocacy Center for the work they put into the case.
“The hard work and dedication of the Children’s Advocacy Center, Christy Williams and Sheriff’s Investigator Wayne Lehman was evident in this case,” she said. “Terri Laird and Allison Lanty worked extremely hard in preparing and prosecuting this case.”
Lehman agreed saying everybody worked well together to bring justice to the victim.
“I was extremely satisfied with the outcome of the trial,” he said. “In the beginning, the investigators did an outstanding job getting the facts to the DA’s office, and they did an incredible job representing those facts and the jury did an outstanding job listening to all of the facts.”
