ADRIAN — A circuit judge was asked Friday to not follow sentencing guidelines for a man who pleaded no contest to two counts of criminal sexual conduct involving his stepdaughter.
Assistant Lenawee County Prosecutor Angie Borders sought a minimum of 10 years in prison for Douglass Duanne Harsh, 49, of Adrian. Harsh’s attorney, Matt Rains of Adrian, and Harsh’s wife — the victim’s mother — asked for a sentence less than the minimum range of 43 to 86 months calculated by the probation department.
Lenawee County Circuit Judge Anna Marie Anzalone decided to send Harsh to prison for six to 15 years in prison on the second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a person younger than 13 charge. She ordered him to serve 16 to 24 months in prison on the fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct charge. The sentences will be served concurrently. The maximum amounts are the most allowed by Michigan law for those charges.
Harsh pleaded no contest to the charges in November. The plea agreement dismissed three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a person younger than 13, two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a person younger than 13 and one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with multiple variables.
A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt but is treated like a guilty plea for sentencing. The police report was used by Anzalone to establish the factual basis for the plea.
For the second-degree criminal sexual conduct charge, the police report said between Feb. 23 and April 2012 that Harsh had the victim, an 11-year-old girl, masturbate him. For the fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct charge, the report established that Harsh forcibly rubbed himself against the girl.
Before being sentenced, Harsh told his family he loved them and thanked them for their support.
The girl’s mother, crying, told Anzalone she didn’t understand why this had happened, that Harsh had been an “amazing” husband and father, and that counseling would be more beneficial than incarceration.
“I don’t think he should be thrown into prison and forgotten about,” she said.
Rains told Anzalone that Harsh was an “all-around good member of this community” with no history of bad behavior, even going back to his high school days in Sand Creek. He said Harsh had served Lenawee County by working for the road commission for 28 years before voluntarily retiring after he entered the no-contest pleas. Harsh has been an active member of his church and had been a supportive and loving stepfather.
“Mr. Harsh is a very good person in terms of this community and his family except for this incident,” Rains said.
He asked Anzalone to take proportionality into consideration in determining the sentence.
“Having him in prison does no service to anyone,” Rains said.
“I feel I woke up in Bizarro World that we would consider anything other than the maximum,” Borders told Anzalone.
Friday was the first time she had heard the mother’s position on sentencing, Borders said. From her experience in prosecuting sex crimes, that reaction comes from guilt that her daughter was molested and from being compassionate.
“She will lose sleep because Mr. Harsh is being punished for molesting her daughter,” Borders told Anzalone. “…She wouldn’t stand crying in front of you today if he had not done what he did.”
The original charges, Borders said, included seven instances of abuse over the course of a year plus a final attempt before the girl reported what was happening. She said he had already received the benefit of the plea agreement, which dismissed charges with a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years, and shouldn’t receive a light sentence.
Rains said it was “paternalistic” for Borders to say the mother was showing the emotional affects of the situation.
“She didn’t speak to emotions,” Rains said. “He’s a good man at heart. …
“He was so consumed with grief and remorse that he nearly took some very rash action in regards to his own personal safety.”
Rains reminded Anzalone that the plea involved only the two counts, not the other allegations.
Before issuing her sentence, Anzalone said it is not uncommon for defendants in criminal sexual conduct cases to have no prior criminal record and have good work and school records. She said Harsh admitted to rubbing “against each other’s privates while playing a game.”
Gesturing to Harsh’s family seated at the front of the courtroom and to his wife and another woman off to one side, Anzalone said it was “heartbreaking to see what (the case has) done to the families.”