Man guilty of 23 counts, including rape, child abuse of two young girls
A 59-year-old man who prosecutors said sexually, emotionally and physically abused two young girls over six months faces up to life in prison after being convicted of all charges he faced.
A jury in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court on Thursday found Harold White guilty of 23 counts, including rape, gross sexual imposition and child endangering.
White’s sentencing is set for Oct. 2 before Judge Patrick Dinkelacker.
The girls were 4 and 7 when they lived with White for six months in 2013. Hamilton County Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Deering said the girls endured “six months in hell.”
White forced the girls to engage in a sex act with each other. If they didn’t comply, “he’d hit us,” one of the girls testified.
“I was so little,” the girl said, “I was so scared to not do what he said.”
Deering said White sexually assaulted the 4-year-old inside an enclosed storage space in the basement of the rented Silverton home.
As a form of punishment, according to testimony, White would force the girls to stand outside in the cold, while naked, for extended periods of time.
One of the girls testified that White tied them to a tree with rope and put duct tape over their mouths “so we couldn’t yell.”
Support local journalism. Subscribe now
The girl said White also would bite her fingers and toes, leaving marks.
He also would force the girls to stand – their feet spread apart, their hands behind their heads – for hours at a time in the living room.
If they leaned on a wall, one of the girls said, “he would spank our butts.”
It was common, prosecutors said, for White to strike them with the metal buckle end of a belt.
One of the girls testified, “he would put food on the floor and make us eat it, like dogs, like animals.”
The girls were living with White while their mother was incarcerated. Once their mother was released, they left the home.
The jury of 10 men and two women began deliberations Wednesday afternoon. The trial began last week.