Fowler was charged earlier this year by sheriff’s detectives who said he communicated via Snapchat with a Tipp City-area girl seeking to buy a vape pen.
The girl testified he came to her family’s driveway in the early morning hours, first in December when he sold her a vape pen for $25. The second time the girl met with Fowler, again in the early morning hours in his car in the driveway, she didn’t have money for a vape pen. Fowler suggested she could “do something for him” and she agreed to oral sex, according to testimony.
When Fowler returned for a third time in early January, a neighbor saw the car in the driveway, and called the girl’s father, waking him. Fowler sped off when the father came out with a gun, jurors were told.
Credit: Miami County Jail
Credit: Miami County Jail
Sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Todd Cooper described how he obtained a search warrant for Google to help identify the phone device that was in the driveway in the early hours of Jan. 2. Records obtained through that warrant led detectives to Fowler, who the girl identified in a photo lineup.
Fowler was on parole at the time of the offense on charges of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented matter from Montgomery County. He had been out of prison for six months when the offense occurred. He had a prior conviction for attempted child enticement involving a 12-year-old girl, said Paul Watkins, first assistant county prosecutor. A second prior conviction also involved young girls, including exchanging vaping devices for nude photos of them, he said.
Fowler and his lawyer both declined comment before Monday’s sentencing by Judge Jeannine Pratt.
Pratt heard comments from the girl’s mother and a statement written by the girl, who was 13 at the time of the offense, and read by a victim advocate. Fowler stole a part of the girl’s innocence and her confidence, her mother said, adding, “It breaks my heart into a thousand pieces.”
Watkins called Fowler “a monster ... The only way to protect the young girls in our society is to lock this man up.”
Fowler was sentenced to the maximum five years allowed on the charge and was designated a Tier II sex offender, requiring him to register his address with the sheriff in the county where he lives or works every 180 days for 25 years following prison release.
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