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Cortland man sentenced to six years in prison for sex offenses involving children
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
A Cortland man is going to prison for six years for having child pornography on his phone from one area girl and committing sex offenses against two others.
All the offenses occurred over several months in 2015.
Michael T. Lennox, 49, of Wakefield Drive, pleaded guilty to 22 sex charges, nine of them relating to child pornography on his phone that a girl, 13, sent to him. He was sentenced this week by Judge Andrew Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.
The girl contacted him and sent the pictures after he left an anonymous note for her at the Willow Lake pool and campground in Champion, giving her his phone number – and telling her he was 15, said Gabe Wildman, an assistant county prosecutor.
Lennox also pleaded guilty to three counts of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles for sending the girl photos of his genitals.
He also pleaded guilty to two counts of gross sexual imposition for having sexual contact with two other girls, both 13, four counts of importuning for asking the two girls to engage in sexual activity, and four counts of misdemeanor public indecency for exposing himself to the two girls.
Cortland police said a girl’s family reported that Lennox exposed himself to the girl at Lennox’s house multiple times in recent years. Later, when police investigated the complaint, they found child pornography on his phone.
Judge Logan also sentenced Elisha D. Wyche, 41, of Jackson Street Southwest, to 11 years in prison for committing a home-invasion burglary with a gun and felonious assault on Phillips Drive Southwest early July 28.
Wyche pleaded guilty earlier to aggravated burglary and kidnapping and two counts of aggravated robbery for forcing her way in the house, hitting an elderly woman in the head with a pistol and assaulting her adult daughter.
Wyche, her son, Mitchell M. Wilson, 26, of Jackson Street Southwest, and Ashley M. Baritell, 22, of Wood Street in Niles, were all still in the house when police arrived and were taken into custody.
Baritell was sentenced to five years in prison earlier. Wilson pleaded guilty to several charges but did not appear for his sentencing, and a warrant has been issued for his arrest.