photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Tyrone Gipson Jr., left, and his attorney, Hatem Chahine, are pictured Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

A man who pleaded no contest to lesser charges after originally being charged with raping a 9-year-old girl was sentenced on Tuesday to probation in Douglas County District Court.

Judge Amy Hanley sentenced Tyrone Gipson Jr. to a total of 30 months in prison for two counts of aggravated assault, which she then suspended to 24 months of probation based on state sentencing guidelines. Before he took the plea agreement in September, Gipson had originally been charged with rape and aggravated criminal sodomy of a victim under 14 years old for incidents that were alleged to have occurred on Nov. 24, 2024.

According to allegations in a sworn affidavit, which have not been proved in court, the girl’s mother contacted police after the girl told her of inappropriate nudity and behavior by Gipson; the mother said she reviewed images in Gipson’s work cellphone and found numerous videos of the girl unclothed. When an investigator spoke to the girl, she described multiple incidents of being sexually abused by Gipson, including rape, the affidavit alleged.

The affidavit also said that police extracted content from Gipson’s two cellphones and reviewed his Google account. A detective in the affidavit described one cellphone as containing 21 videos “of evidentiary value,” including images of the unclothed girl in “various positions.” The internet history on the phone contained 176 entries related to a specific type of child abuse that was “explicitly typed and searched by” Gipson, according to the affidavit.

At Gipson’s sentencing on Tuesday, the girl’s mother spoke and said her daughter had “devastating trauma inflicted on her.”

“I carry the guilt and the heartbreak of knowing that I couldn’t protect her,” the girl’s mother said. She went on to say that Gipson “is not just a danger to my daughter, he is a danger to society.”

But Hanley said that the plea had “substantially lowered” the charges against Gipson, and that her options in sentencing him were “much more limited than I think some people understand.” To explain to the mother and others present, she held up the state sentencing guidelines chart and showed where Gipson fell on it.

“He is squarely a presumptive probation sentence,” Hanley said. “There is no other option that I have under the law.”

Gipson, who did not make a statement at the hearing, was represented by attorney Hatem Chahine, and the state was represented by Senior Assistant District Attorney Ricardo Leal.

Chahine noted that Gipson was employed as a machine operator and that he was working toward earning a master’s degree. He said that Gipson now lived in Shawnee County and that he didn’t think there was any reason GPS monitoring should be required for Gipson on probation.

Hanley, however, noting “the amount of fear” that the girl’s mother still had, did order GPS monitoring for Gipson. He will be able to continue residing in Shawnee County, and he will not be allowed any contact with the girl or her mother.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Tyrone Gipson Jr., left, leaves Douglas County District Court on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. At right is Senior Assistant District Attorney Ricardo Leal.