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Home > Blogs > Dayton Courts: Legal and crime news > Archives > 2010 > January > 08
Friday, January 8, 2010
Sexual assault of two Xenia girls leads to guilty plea for Michigan man
DAYTON — A church music director from Michigan, accused of sexually assaulting two Xenia girls in Toledo, pleaded guilty Friday, Jan. 8, of coercion and enticement of a minor.
David Jeremy Zobel, 32, of Ann Arbor, appeared before U.S. District Senior Judge Walter H. Rice, who set sentencing for April 8 and ordered the U.S. Probation Department to do a pre-sentencing investigation.
Rice also denied bond for Zobel, who has been jailed since his June 12 arrest in Michigan.
The charge carries a mandatory minimum of ten years in prison, but can result in a life sentence. Prosecutors are recommending a 10-to-15 year sentencing range, according to Brent Tabacchi, assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio.
Rice told Zobel that he was not guaranteeing a sentence in that range, but added that if Rice found he could not sentence within that range, Zobel would have the right to withdraw his plea.
Zobel will be on supervised parole for at least five years after his release from prison, but could be supervised for the rest of his life, under the agreement.
Other charges, including another coercion count and three counts of interstate travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, were dismissed under the plea agreement.
The girls were 12 and 13 at the time of the alleged assaults last year.
He took the two girls from Xenia to a parking garage in Toledo, where he had the two girls perform oral sex on him, according to a statement of facts filed with the case. He also took pictures of the girls in just their bras or topless, then gave each girl $20 before he left the garage, according to the statement.
Investigators also found 61 pictures of child pornography on Zobel’s computer, according to the statement, which Rice read aloud in court.
Zobel admitted to agents he had engaged in online sexual dialogue with one of the girls, whom he said he believed to be 16, since November 2008. He also admitted driving to Xenia, picking up that girl and a friend who wanted to run away, and driving them to Toledo, according to an FBI affidavit in the case.
As they texted each other on June 2, Zobel asked “and you guys will do anything I want?” according to the statement of facts.
The criminal complaint alleges that Zobel drove the girls only to Toledo because he feared transporting two underage girls across state lines. But the girls told Toledo police that once there, Zobel drove to a parking garage, locked the doors of his car and refused to open them until the girls performed sexual acts.
The girls were reported missing on June 2 and interviewed by Toledo police on June 3.
Xenia police said the girls’ parents reported they’d been talking to a man on the Internet. Police found his screen name on the computer and filed a subpoena with MySpace.com for his account.
According to the FBI affidavit, the information came back to the ComCast cable provider, and after an emergency request, ComCast gave Xenia police Zobel’s name, address and telephone number in Ann Arbor.
By June 5, Xenia police had talked to Zobel, who admitted only to giving the girls a ride and dropping them off in Toledo.
But that same day, Xenia police said they examined one of the girls’ cell phones and found 41 text messages to and from Zobel. One was a request from the girl to Zobel, asking for a place to stay after her friend ran away from home. Several text messages from each side reference possible sexual contact, police said.
Zobel told agents they had seen the only camera in the house, only to have his wife direct agents to another camera, which held the photos of the girls, according to the FBI affidavit.
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