GREENFIELD — A Greenfield man will spend 22 years in prison for child molesting.
Hancock County Circuit Court Judge Scott Sirk sentenced Kirk Lonas Thursday in Hancock County.
Lonas will also be designated as a Sexually Violent Predator for life and can’t have contact with his victims for the duration of his sentence.
A jury convicted Lonas on two counts of child molesting, one count a Level 3 felony and the other a Level 4 felony.
The victims were under 14 years old at the time of the abuse, which occurred between July 2019 and August 2020, records show.
They disclosed to authorities the details of the abuse, which took place at two locations in Hancock County and involved numerous separate incidents, according to the prosecutor’s office.
“In many cases, the first report of alleged abuse or neglect comes through a hotline call,” Hancock County Prosecutor Brent Eaton said. “Anyone in Indiana who suspects a child may have been abused or neglected is required by law to make a report. The names of those making reports remain confidential.”
Indiana’s Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline number is 1-800-800-5556.
Eaton released the following statement in response to Thursday’s sentencing:
We are grateful for the work of the Greenfield of the Greenfield Police Department in the work on this investigation and providing us with the evidence needed to achieve this result. The facts of this incident occurred more than 5 years ago and it took almost three years from the date this case was filed until we got to today’s result. The Hancock County Prosecutor’s Office Attorneys and staff have spent hundreds of hours over the last three years in this litigation. It has been a very long a difficult road to achieve this result, but we are gratified by the Court’s ruling today. We are fortunate to have such a tireless advocate for children in our community as Chief Deputy Aimee Herring who was lead trial counsel on this case. We are grateful for the work of our victim assistant Shannon Crull who spent countless hours communicating with the family and victims in this case as it made its way through the legal process. Finally, we are grateful for the bravery and persistence of the young victims in this case who came forward. We hope that today’s ruling will provide them a sense of safety and closure and help them on their path to heal. This one case took hundreds of hours of work to bring to resolution, but achieving a result like this and being able to help our community’s children be safer is absolutely worth it.
