photo by: Mike Yoder

Thomas Spotted Horse appears Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019, in Douglas County District Court. Spotted Horse, a former Haskell Indian Nations University housing supervisor, was recently convicted to child sex crimes.

A former Haskell Indian Nations University housing supervisor has been convicted of sex crimes for incidents against two children that spanned a decade, and he could face about 10 years in prison.

Thomas A. Spotted Horse, 64, entered a plea deal last month and is scheduled to be sentenced next week in Douglas County District Court, which will bring the long-running case to a close.

According to a copy of the plea agreement provided to the Journal-World on Monday, Spotted Horse pleaded no contest to two counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child, a level-three felony.

In return for the plea, the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office agreed to request that Judge Amy Hanley sentence Spotted Horse to the standard sentence for each count, to be served consecutively. If Hanley follows the request and Spotted Horse is determined to have no prior criminal history, he could be ordered to serve 118 months in prison, which is just under 10 years, according to the state’s sentencing guidelines. He was also required to register as a sex offender.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 30.

photo by: Contributed/Kansas offender registry

Thomas A. Spotted Horse in August 2021

The plea agreement does not note that any charges were amended or dismissed through the agreement, but it appears four charges had been dropped. Spotted Horse also could have faced much stiffer penalties.

Spotted Horse was originally arrested on the charges in 2018, but the allegations of abuse date back to 2007 and continue through 2017, according to a charging document filed in 2018. One of the children was 5 when the alleged abuse began, and the other was 12, according to the complaint.

Spotted Horse was originally charged with six counts in all — three against each victim — of aggravated indecent liberties with a child and aggravated criminal sodomy, the Journal-World previously reported. Four of the counts were off-grid, which could have come with sentences of life imprisonment.

Spotted Horse — whose name has been spelled Spottedhorse or SpottedHorse in other references — was a recognized figure around Haskell.

The supervisor of housing, he retired in 2017 after 27 years with the university, the Haskell Indian Leader student newspaper reported at the time. Spotted Horse also delivered a pre-meeting blessing before at least one Haskell Board of Regents meeting in the spring of 2015.

Spotted Horse lived in Lawton, Okla., at the time of his arrest. He has remained in custody on a $500,000 bond during the entirety of his case, according to court records.