photo by: Chris Conde/ Journal-World

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

A Eudora man was ordered to stand trial on Wednesday after a teenage girl testified that he touched her in ways that made her feel uncomfortable and repeatedly exposed himself to her on video chat while she was playing online video games.

After a hearing in Douglas County District Court that was extended across two days, Judge Sally Pokorny ordered Justin Robert Royer, 43, to stand trial on two felony counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child under the age of 14 and one felony count of lewd and lascivious behavior.

The charges relate to incidents as far back as 2018, when the girl was as young as 7 years old. The indecent liberties charges are both off-grid felonies, meaning that Royer could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.

When the hearing began on Monday, the girl took the stand and, through tears, testified that Royer had touched her when she was younger in ways that made her uncomfortable.

The girl testified that she was staying at Royer’s home when she was about 7 years old and had fallen asleep in the same bed as Royer. She said she woke up in the middle of the night to find that she was on top of Royer and that Royer’s hands were on her back, underneath her clothes. She said she remembers “feeling weird,” but that she laid her head on Royer’s chest and went back to sleep.

A couple of years later, she testified, she was again staying at Royer’s home. She said they were side by side in bed, and Royer repeatedly moved her hand onto his groin, over his clothes. She testified that he seemed be sexually aroused.

“I didn’t want to put my hand there,” the girl said. She said she moved her hand away four or five times, but Royer kept putting it back, and she eventually gave up trying to move it.

The girl testified that her uncomfortable interactions with Royer didn’t end there. She said that in June of 2023, she and Royer frequently played video games online together, and that it was common for Royer to video chat with her while they played. During the calls, she testified, Royer would frequently expose himself to her.

“He would take off his pants and rub himself,” the girl said.

The girl said that when they were going to play a video game, Royer would often text her ahead of time to start a call, and she was too “uncomfortable” to say no.

One night, when the girl was playing games online, her stepmother testified that she came into the room to check on her. The stepmother said that when she walked into the girl’s room, she saw Royer on the video call, and that Royer had placed his camera in between his legs, pointing up at his face. The stepmother said that she could see Royer’s genitals and his face in the frame.

“I just saw his hand going up and down at the bottom of the phone,” the stepmother said.

She said the girl made eye contact with her as if to acknowledge what was happening, then continued playing games.

The stepmother said she then went and told the girl’s father, and the next day they called the police to make a report.

Eudora police officer John Mathews testified that he interviewed the girl, and that she told him about the previous incidents at Royer’s home. Mathews also examined her phone to see how often she and Royer were communicating; he found that Royer and the girl frequently communicated by both text and video chat.

In one message, Mathews testified, Royer said he was happy that the girl had started wearing makeup; in another, he said Royer was suggesting types of bathing suits for her to wear. The stepmother also testified that Royer always showed extra attention to the girl and would frequently offer to buy her things.

Douglas County District Attorney Suzanne Valdez said it was clear that Royer was grooming the child with frequent attention, gifts and sexual behavior. She said if the stepmother hadn’t happened to see the video call, this would have continued.

But Royer’s attorney, Branden Smith, argued that the girl hadn’t said anything about the first incident at Royer’s home that would indicate that Royer was sexually aroused at the time.

Valdez and Smith disagreed about whether the lewd and lascivious behavior charge was appropriate — specifically, Smith claimed that it didn’t apply, because the alleged exposure on the video chats wasn’t in public or in the physical presence of the girl, and Valdez said there was legal precedent that said otherwise.

Pokorny extended the hearing to Wednesday so she could review the case law, and on Wednesday she ultimately sided with Valdez, ordering Royer to stand trial on all three counts.

Royer was arrested in connection with the charge on Oct. 26, 2023, as the Journal-World reported. He is currently free on a $25,000 surety bond and is next scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 17 for arraignment.