photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Rape defendant Lance Yoder appears Friday, June 28, 2024, in Douglas County District Court.

One count of rape in a three-count complaint was dismissed on Friday after a Lawrence defense attorney successfully argued that it was barred by the statute of limitations, and the other two rape counts could face a similar fate when a judge makes a ruling in November.

The dismissal occurred in the case of Lance Yoder, who is accused of raping two girls in the early 2000s.

Kansas no longer has a statute of limitations for rape, but the law was different prior to 2023 and its application can vary depending on which version of the law was in effect when and how old the parties were.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Defense Attorney Branden Smith makes an argument Friday, June 28, 2024, in the case of Lance Yoder, who has been accused of rape.

District Judge Amy Hanley dismissed the third count in the complaint, ultimately agreeing that it was clearly barred, and gave defense attorney Branden Smith and Assistant District Attorney Samantha Foster until Oct. 7 to brief their arguments regarding the other two counts, which Smith argued were also barred but which he described as a “dicier” argument in terms of the statute. Hanley is expected to rule on the matter on Nov. 6.

The issue arose Friday at Yoder’s preliminary hearing, at which Hanley would normally have decided whether probable cause existed to order Yoder to stand trial. That determination will now depend on whether the remaining rape counts survive the defense’s attempt to have them dismissed.

At the hearing, a 27-year-old woman testified that Yoder had repeatedly sexually abused her when she was a young child. The woman said she decided to speak up about the abuse, which allegedly occurred in 2007 and 2008, at the beginning of this year because she thought it was important that Yoder never be alone with other children. Yoder, who is now 54, would have been in his mid to late 30s at the time of the alleged crimes.

The woman testified that with the help of police she recorded Yoder discussing the abuse. On the recording, played in court, the woman and a man identified as Yoder meet up and engage in a variety of small talk before the conversation turns to things that happened during her childhood. Yoder is heard apologizing and saying “I regret anything I did that hurt you.” He doesn’t deny touching her inappropriately and claims he “stopped immediately” when she asked him to.

When the woman asks him why he would do those things to her, he says, “Honestly, I can’t understand it.”

But then he tells her that a female babysitter had taken “advantage” of him when he was a kid and that it “kind of made my brain screwy.”

“That chick jacked me up,” he said of the babysitter, “and made me a weird person.”

Later in the conversation he denies ever having “s-e-x” with her, spelling out the word, apparently trying to differentiate it from other kinds of touching. He suggests that an act of intercourse that she said had occurred was not with him but with “that Black guy” who had been in the same house. No, she says, “It was you.”

Yoder, during the recording, also holds out the promise multiple times of a life insurance policy so that she could have a “nest egg” someday.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Assistant Douglas County District Attorney Samantha Foster questions a witness Friday, June 28, 2024, in the case of Lance Yoder, who has been accused of rape.

A police investigator also testified Friday that the woman had not been able to record the conversation over the phone because Yoder insisted on meeting in person, and when they went for a walk he insisted that she leave her phone behind. She was able to make the recording with a recorder provided by police.

The other woman, whose case was dismissed, also took the stand and testified that she too had suffered abuse at Yoder’s hands.

The sex-crime report was made to police on Jan. 7 of this year, according to the Lawrence police incident report log. Yoder was charged on Feb. 29.

As the Journal-World reported, Yoder had been employed as a janitor by the Lawrence school district since September 2022, and he was assigned to Schwegler Elementary School, according to district spokesperson Julie Boyle. Boyle said he was a night custodian and was last at work on Feb. 28.

Yoder has been terminated from the district, and his alleged crimes from the early 2000s are not linked to his later employment in the district. He was granted a $100,000 own-recognizance bond in March.