Stepmother testifies about time teen spent with adult farmhand

YOUNGSTOWN — A woman testified Monday that her stepdaughter spent an “excessive” amount of time with an adult farmhand who is accused of having unlawful sexual conduct with the girl.

But the woman said Brian P. Mathews, 37, of Argo Street, became like a “surrogate family member” during the four years he worked at the family farm, and no other family member or employee at the farm witnessed anything to suggest that the two were having a sexual relationship.

An employee did find the girl’s diary in May 2006, however, and it contained descriptions of sex acts the two engaged in starting in December of 2005, when the girl was 15, the woman said.

The girl’s father later turned the diary over to police.

After authorities added in encounters dating back to Aug. 1, 2004, when the girl was 14, that were not in the diary, Mathews was charged with 13 counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor. If convicted, each count carries a prison term of up to five years.

The stepmother said that after the girl found out her father had turned the diary over to police in June 2006, the girl became “depressed and despondent.” The girl later discussed the encounters with a sheriff’s deputy and a doctor at Tod Children’s Hospital.

The trial resumes in the courtroom of Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court today.