photo by: Chris Conde/ Journal-World

The Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center is pictured in September 2018.

A 22-year-old man on Thursday was ordered to stand trial in Douglas County District Court for allegedly raping a 13-year-old girl while her family was in another room.

The man, Ernest F. Ingram II, of Ottawa, is charged with one count of rape of a person under 14, one felony count of furnishing alcohol to a minor with illicit purposes, and a misdemeanor charge of furnishing alcohol to a minor, according to charging documents. The rape charge is an off-grid felony and could result in a life sentence if Ingram is convicted.

The charges stem from an incident on or about Sept. 20, 2021, when Ingram is alleged to have met a woman for consensual sex and then to have raped a teenager in the same residence later that night.

Judge Amy Hanley bound Ingram over for trial after a two-part probable cause hearing. District Attorney Suzanne Valdez said Thursday that during the first part of the hearing on Aug. 8, the 13-year-old testified that after Ingram had sex with the 20-year-old he then went into the teenager’s room and forced her to have sex.

However, Ingram’s defense attorney, Al Harris, said Thursday that there was never any testimony that directly said that Ingram had penetrated the girl. Hanley then stopped Harris and quoted the girl’s testimony from the earlier hearing. Hanley said the girl clearly and graphically described the incident during her testimony. Harris also said that it wasn’t clear if Ingram was the one who served the girl alcohol.

Harris said he has filed a motion to suppress video of Ingram’s police interrogation; he argued that Lawrence police violated his client’s Miranda rights by questioning him after he had indicated he wanted a lawyer. Hanley said she had watched the video but would hear Harris’ motion to suppress it on Oct. 4.

According to an arrest affidavit filed by a Lawrence police detective, Ingram met a woman on a dating app called “Badoo” and after a few weeks of exchanging messages the two decided to meet at the woman’s house. The woman knew Ingram by his online pseudonym “Elijah Atencio.”

Witnesses told the detective that Ingram, who was 21 at the time, was dropped off at the women’s house the evening of Sept. 20, and Ingram, the 20-year-old and the 13-year-old played video games together. Ingram had brought beer and shared it with the woman and the teen despite having been told by the woman in a text message not to share with the teenager because she was only 13 and her parents didn’t want her to drink, according to the affidavit.

Throughout the evening Ingram was sending the teen messages on Snapchat saying he was “horny” and later in the evening he verbally told the teen he was “going to do something about it,” according to the affidavit. Ingram was alone with the teen in her bedroom and told the girl to “roll over” before holding her down and having intercourse with her, the teen told the detective. She said she didn’t know how to tell him she didn’t want to have sex.

The 20-year-old said that she had had sex with Ingram twice that night and once more the next morning but wasn’t aware of a sexual assault on the teenager until the next day. Ingram had blocked both the woman and the teen on Snapchat, and the two of them exchanged texts about him and the alleged assault later that evening. The girl was then taken to the hospital for a sexual assault exam.

The detective questioned Ingram on Sept. 28, 2021, while he was in custody at the jail in Franklin County on an unrelated matter. Ingram told the detective that he brought a 12-pack of beer to the residence but did not share it with the teen. He said he believed the teen was 16 and that he and the teen had consensual sex after smoking marijuana resin and after she came onto him, according to the affidavit.

Ingram told the detective that the girl’s parents were aware of the sex immediately after it had occurred and that the girl and her parents argued about it, and the parent yelled during the argument that “she is only 15,” and that is when Ingram said he knew he had made a mistake and later blocked the woman and the teen on Snapchat, according to the affidavit.

Ingram was first booked into the Douglas County Jail on the charges on June 7 and was given a bond of $150,000; he has been in custody since then.

Ingram was convicted on April 7 in Franklin County for felony aggravated endangerment of a child. He pleaded no contest to the charge as a part of a plea agreement in a case in which he originally faced charges of rape of a minor and furnishing alcohol to a minor. Those charges stem from an incident on Sept. 24, 2021. He was sentenced to probation by Franklin County Judge Douglas P. Witteman, according to Franklin County Court records.