photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Michael Aller, standing, appears with defense attorney Carl Cornwell Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026, in Douglas County District Court.

A sex-crime victim sobbed in apparent disappointment Thursday as the sentencing for her abuser was delayed another six weeks after the man’s attorney neglected to comply with a court rule.

Carl Cornwell, the defense attorney for sex offender Michael Ken Aller, was poised to argue for a departure to probation from the Kansas Sentencing Guidelines but had not filed a copy of the joint motion with Judge Amy Hanley, leaving her no option but to continue the hearing to a later date. Cornwell, who has tried several cases in Douglas County, said he was unaware of the local rule that judges require copies of motions.

The prosecutor in the case, Megan Ahsens, is new to the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office, and was making her first appearance in the case Thursday.

Hanley apologized to those who had gathered for the hearing, but said a departure motion asking for probation was not one that, out of fairness to both sides, she could consider on the fly. In order to grant a dispositional departure, she is required by law to review the motion and find that “substantial and compelling” reasons exist.

Before the filing issue became apparent Thursday, Hanley noted that Aller had been convicted via a no contest plea on Jan. 2 of two counts of aggravated sexual battery. With his criminal history score of “B” — the worst possible being “A” — he is facing a presumptive prison sentence, but the defense and the state had previously agreed to recommend a departure to probation. Hanley is not bound by the recommendation in the plea agreement, and the state said in the agreement that it would not be bound by its recommendation if Aller’s presentence investigation report turned up issues in Aller’s past that would weigh against a probation recommendation.

Hanley noted that Special Rule 5 would apply to Aller’s case because he is a “persistent sex offender.”

That rule states that “the sentence for any persistent sex offender whose current convicted crime carries a presumptive term of imprisonment shall be double the maximum duration of the presumptive imprisonment term.”

She also noted that Special Rule 9 applies. That rule contemplates consecutive sentencing when someone is convicted of a crime while on probation or parole for another offense.

Aller was convicted in Douglas County of a sex crime previously, and he did get probation in that case. In 2020, he was accused of attempting to solicit sex from a 15-year-old girl online and sending her illicit pictures of himself; in 2022, he pleaded no contest to electronic solicitation of a person between the ages of 14 and 16 and attempted aggravated indecent liberties with a child. He was sentenced to 59 months in prison in that case, which a former judge, Kay Huff, suspended to three years of probation.

Hanley told the parties at Aller’s plea hearing eight weeks ago that she would need a motion outlining reasons for departure in the current case.

“I can’t just come up with them myself,” she said of reasons to depart to probation.

That motion, however, was not given to her until Thursday, several minutes into the hearing.

Aller was originally charged with rape in the current case. At his preliminary hearing last August, a woman testified that he sexually assaulted her on March 30, 2022, in a Lawrence trailer home.

Hanley reset Aller’s sentencing date to April 7. After she adjourned the hearing, Cornwell stood up and said that in light of a private discussion that took place with the new prosecutor as the two met in chambers he was contemplating filing a motion to withdraw Aller’s plea.