A Montague County grand jury has returned a host of new indictments on various child sexual crimes against a former Nocona businessman who was linked to the disappearance of an area teen.
On April 13, the grand jury indicted Ricky Howard, 56, on two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child, two counts of indecency with a child sexual contact, and 34 counts of possession of child pornography.
Howard was preparing for an early release from state prison possibly in early summer on a five-year sentence for 11 counts of unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon.
He pleaded guilty in that case in June 2016 during a bench trial before 97th District Judge Jack McGaughey.
Montague County law officers traveled to serve the indictments on Howard in prison last Thursday. A $950,000 total bail was set, and a hold was placed on him since he is currently in jail.
District Attorney Casey Polhemus said that hold is now in effect and, once he is paroled, Howard will be sent directly to the Montague County Jail, where he will appear in court on the indictments.
Polhemus said the sexual assault charges stem from Howard’s arrest on Dec. 15, 2015.
At the time, he was accused of incidents that occurred from 1996 to 2000 and began when the male victim was 13 years of age.
The indecency charges stem from the Jan. 12, 2016, arrest in which he was accused of incidents that go back to the summer of 1994 when the male victim was 12 years old.
The DA said, in those cases, Howard was arrested, but he had not been indicted.
The child pornography charges were reportedly discovered on Howard’s computer, which was seized during one of the searches conducted on his various properties during the spring of 2015.
An examination by the Federal Bureau of Investigations led to the discovery of the reported child pornography images, investigators said.
Polhemus said due to Howard’s previous federal conviction on bank fraud, the possession of child pornography charges, normally a third-degree felony, were enhanced to second-degree felonies on each image.
He had served 46 months in federal prison on charges of bank fraud in 2007 while he was president of Legend Bank, Nocona branch. That conviction made it illegal for him to possession any firearm.
Howard was arrested on May 18, 2015, for unlawful possession of a firearm after incidents that occurred during the investigation into Caleb Diehl’s disappearance on April 1, 2015.
He was questioned in the Diehl case because the teen, who lived in Grapevine with his sister, worked part-time for Howard, and the teen’s mother still resides in Nocona.
Investigators have said Howard may have been the last person to see Diehl when he reportedly asked to borrow a company truck to go on a job on March 30, 2015.
That was the last time Diehl was seen, but the truck was back on the lot two days later with the keys in their regular place.
Texas Rangers and local investigators questioned Howard about Diehl, and also executed multiple search warrants on his properties.
During one of those searches on April 11, 2015, officers found a gun safe containing several firearms in a locked shop located at 6493 Farm-to-Market Road 2953.
That led to the first firearms charge, which was followed two more after Howard went to a private gun range and shot a handgun at targets and when he moved the gun safe to another property placing in a large shipping container.
The new indictments stem from an investigation involving the Montague County Sheriff’s Office, the 97th District Attorney’s Office, the Texas Rangers and the Nocona Police Department.