Child rapist Yoder sentenced to concurrent 12-year prison terms

Following original sentence overturn, Law. Co. Pros. Atty. Trotter agrees to new plea for victims’ well being
 
A former LaRussell resident who was sentenced to multiple life terms after pleading guilty to multiple sex crimes will now spend much less time in prison after being resentenced to two concurrent 12-year prison sentences after pleading guilty to two counts of statutory rape as part of a plea bargain. Marcus Yoder, 41, pleaded guilty to the charges on Wednesday, July 21.

Victims came forward in 2013
As was previously reported in the Lawrence County Record, an investigation into Yoder began when one of the victims came forward to report that she had been sexually abused by Yoder. The victim said she was molested by Yoder from Nov. 1, 1997, when she was seven, until May of 2001, when she was 11. She reported Yoder had intercourse with her on six different times between those dates. Three other individuals, two boys and one girl, shared similar experiences at the hands of Yoder.
The detective who investigated the charges against Yoder reported, in each case involving the female victims, that he interviewed a person who witnessed Yoder having intercourse with them. The detective also reported he interviewed “several” witnesses who heard Yoder confess to having sexual contact with each of the victims.

Yoder’s original guilty plea overturned
In April of 2016, Yoder pleaded guilty to all seven charges brought against him and was sentenced to seven concurrent life-terms in prison. However, in July of 2020, Yoder’s guilty plea was thrown out, over the objections of Asst. Prosecuting Attorney Wantuck, on the grounds that Yoder didn’t fully understand what he was doing when he made the plea.
“The court finds (Yoder) lacked sufficient information and understanding of the facts and circumstances of his case at the time of his plea of guilty to make an adequately informed decision as to how to proceed,” Jack Goodman, circuit judge, wrote in the ruling that overturned Yoder’s plea. “The court, therefore, concludes (Yoder’s) plea of guilty was not knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily made and must be set aside.”
Wantuck argued at the time that Yoder was not entitled to relief. In a 13-page reply to Yoder’s petition for relief, he wrote that Yoder was correctly advised by his attorney about the possibility of probation and the risk to making a plea.
“(Yoder) was well-informed of the risk of a plea,” Wantuck wrote. “What he got was clearly within the correct range of punishment, and what he got was clearly within the range that he was advised of. His counsel argued for probation on these offenses, and that was available to the judge legally. It was a longshot, given that he sodomized or raped a number of children and confessed to raping multiple children – the reality of the situation was that any mere jail time or fine would not be a likely or expected outcome in any Missouri court of which counsel is aware – where there is an admitted rape of multiple children.”
Wantuck also argued that Yoder’s petition to plead guilty was correct, and all the documents and statements of facts in the plea supported the correct charge.

The plea bargain
In place of the original charges, the Lawrence County Prosecutor’s Office charged Yoder with four counts of statutory rape and two counts of statutory sodomy. Yoder was allowed to plead guilty to two counts of statutory rape, for each of which he was sentenced to 12 years in prison, with both sentences to run concurrently; the other charges were dismissed. Yoder also gets credit for all time already served both in prison and while awaiting trial, meaning half of his sentence is already served.

Prosecuting, defense attorneys in the case have different views on Yoder’s sentence
Daniel Dodson, who represented Yoder, called the case “really unusual,” and said Yoder didn’t realize what he was doing was wrong at the time.
“Marcus was adopted … out of Honduras by a Mennonite family, and it’s not a subject that’s talked about in that culture,” he said. “The main relationship involved here started when Marcus was 12 years old. When he turned 17, he had no idea that that changed the legal status of it. In the end, I thought the prosecutor was very fair in acknowledging that the facts weren’t what they were originally assessed to be … I think the outcome reflected that.”
Dodson also said that there were some “factual misrepresentations” in Yoder’s original trial which seriously impacted his sentence.
“I don’t have any reason to believe it was deliberate,” he said, “but there were factual misrepresentations during the proceedings before that his lawyers (hadn’t) caught, and I think if he’d been represented well the first time around, he might very well have gotten probation.”
Dodson also said Yoder was satisfied “that it’s a much more just outcome than the first time around.”

Trotter agrees to spare victims
Don Trotter, Lawrence County prosecuting attorney, had a much different take on Yoder’s sentence. He said he did not believe that it was appropriate, but said he agreed to it to spare the victims in the case, saying, “It would have been a very painful trial for them to have to go through.”
“I had four victims who were worn out; they’re tired,” he said. “They’ve been going through this for 20 years, and they just didn’t want to do it anymore. They would, they were willing to do it, but they just didn’t want to. You could see it; it was very painful for all of them. After talking with them, they were all very relieved that it was over.”
Trotter also disagreed with Dodson’s assertion that Yoder could have gotten probation.
“I’ve never seen a court in our area that would ever give anybody probation for being 20 years old and having sex with a six, seven or 10-year-old, ever. Had we taken it to trial and they had testified, I believe I would have gotten 30 years all over again on each sentence. I don’t know if I would have gotten consecutive time, (but) I was going to ask for it.”
It was reported that Yoder was transferred out of the Lawrence County Jail, where he was held after his original guilty plea was overturned, and back to the South Central Correctional Facility in Licking, on Friday, July 23.