photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Lance Yoder appears Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in Douglas County District Court.

A Lawrence man was ordered on Wednesday to stand trial on two counts of rape for crimes that allegedly occurred 17 years ago.

The defendant, Lance Yoder, 54, was originally charged with three counts of rape, but one count was dismissed in June because it was barred by the statute of limitations, as the Journal-World reported.

At that preliminary hearing in June, 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.

In addition to the woman’s testimony, Judge Amy Hanley heard a recorded conversation between the woman and Yoder in which the two discuss the alleged abuse and Yoder apologizes, saying “I regret anything I did that hurt you.” In the recording, made with the assistance of police, Yoder doesn’t deny touching her inappropriately but claims he “stopped immediately” when she asked him to — a claim she denies. He is also heard blaming “a Black guy” for an act of rape that she had accused him of as she slept.

Another woman, whose case was dismissed, also testified in June that she too had suffered abuse at Yoder’s hands when she was a child.

Yoder pleaded not guilty Wednesday, through his attorney Branden Smith, and Hanley scheduled his trial for April 7, 2025.

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.