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Man acquitted of rape charge
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Atty. Gary L. VanBrocklin, left, confers with his client, Milous Brown, in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. A visiting judge
YOUNGSTOWN
A 35-year-old Campbell man will be sentenced today on a sex charge, but he was acquitted on a rape charge involving an 8-year-old girl.
Milous Brown could have been sent to prison the rest of his life had he been convicted of rape.
Brown was on trial before Visiting Judge Thomas Pokorny in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. Prosecutors argued that Brown raped an 8-year-old girl in 2006 using his hand.
Brown chose not to have his case heard by a jury and instead allowed Judge Pokorny to hear and rule on the charges directly.
“There is an absence of physical evidence in this case. ... The victim’s recollection of the events is uncorroborated,” Judge Pokorny said Wednesday. “The court cannot find the element of penetration beyond reasonable doubt. The court does find that the defendant did have sexual contact with the victim.”
The judge then found Brown guilty of a lesser charge of gross sexual imposition.
Atty. Gary L. VanBrocklin, representing Brown, said the new charge carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.
Natasha Frenchko, an assistant county prosecutor, asked that sentencing be delayed a day so the victim and her family could be present.
Frenchko told the court Brown attended a swimming party in Campbell where the girl was present in 2006. Brown was accused of holding the girl and using his hands to assault her at the party.
The girl testified in court that she screamed and ran to her mother when the incident took place but did not tell anyone what happened until later. A few days after the purported incident, the girl wrote her mother a note titled, “What Milous did to me.”
A former girlfriend of Brown’s testified that Brown never was alone in the pool with the girl, and Brown was playing with a number of kids at the party, picking them up and throwing them into the pool. She said she never lost sight of Brown at the party, and he was not alone with the girl.
Brown already is serving a 10-year sentence after being convicted in 2011 of the molestation of two girls who were 4 and 5 years old in 2009.
In that case, Judge John Durkin of common pleas court sentenced Brown to maximum sentences of five years on each of two gross sexual imposition charges to be served consecutively.
Brown is required to register as a sex offender for 25 years.