A Douglas County judge ordered a 45-year-old Edgerton man to face a trial later this year on seven child sex-crime charges involving a 5-year-old girl and a 6-year-old girl.

District Judge Peggy Kittel made the ruling Tuesday afternoon after hearing evidence in a preliminary hearing that was continued from April.

The mother of the 6-year-old girl testified in April that she saw her daughter touching the groin area of the suspect in her family’s backyard last year. The 5-year-old is the daughter of her boyfriend, who had often worked in construction with the suspect.

Douglas County Sheriff’s officers testified the two girls told them the man, who had worked with a family member, would molest them when he came to their house, east of Baldwin City.

Kittel scheduled the man’s trial for August.

The Journal-World generally does not identify sex-crime suspects unless they are convicted.