Lima man found guilty of sex crimes

Dec. 17—LIMA — A Lima man was found guilty on 17 counts of sex crimes in the Allen County Common Pleas Court on Thursday.

A jury of eight men and four women found Frank Alexander guilty of 10 counts of rape, counts of sexual matter and one count of gross sexual imposition. The crimes were committed against minors under the age of 13 with some victims being under the age of 9.

Alexander sat stoically in his chair as Judge Jeffrey Reed read the jury's verdict sheet out loud one count at a time. As Reed worked his down to count eight, Alexander showed his first hint of emotion during a trial that was full of emotional content given his crimes were committed against children.

Alexander committed the crimes during the period of 2008 to 2018 with an intermittent break in between. It wasn't until the most recent assault on July 2, 2018, that his prior acts were uncovered.

During questioning of witnesses and family members a detective with the Lima Police Department discovered the prior acts of sexual assault that began in or around 2008 with a different minor victim under the age of 9.

After the first victim in 2008 told detectives she too was sexually assaulted by Alexander, a detective was then able to get a confession from Alexander that corroborated that victim's account.

With the matching confessions and overwhelming evidence presented by the prosecution, the jury needed less than three hours of deliberation to come back with their verdict of guilty on each count.

Due to a previous sexually related conviction that was not disclosed prior to Thursday, Judge Reed said he needed to conduct an investigation before sentencing Alexander. Reed could potentially hand down a life sentence given the nature of his crimes and the age of the victims.

Reed set sentencing for January 24 at 9:30 a.m.