photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The Juvenile Division Courtroom at the Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center is pictured on Friday, June 26, 2026.

A teenager who was set to stand trial in less than two weeks for allegedly raping and sodomizing a Lawrence 5-year-old accepted a plea deal Thursday in Douglas County District Court.

The teen, who was 14 when the crime occurred on Nov. 17, 2024, pleaded no contest to an amended count of aggravated indecent liberties with a child. Even though his victim was 5 years old, she is listed in the amended complaint as being between 14 and 16 for purposes of the defendant’s pleading to a level 4 person felony.

As a factual basis for the plea, prosecutor Devin Canfield told Judge Paul Klepper that the teen had entered the girl’s bedroom, closed the door and touched her sexually. The girl asked him to stop, but he refused. He then told her that what he had done was a secret and not to tell anyone. But the girl disclosed the incident to her relatives, who alerted law enforcement and medical professionals.

As part of the plea deal, one count of aggravated criminal sodomy was dismissed. The teen will be sentenced on Sept. 30 following the completion of a psychosexual evaluation recommended by the parties and ordered by the court. The parties agreed to not make a sentencing recommendation Thursday but to leave the matter open to argument at the upcoming hearing.

Judge Klepper told the teen that as a “Serious Offender 1” on the juvenile placement matrix — similar to state sentencing guidelines for adults — he could face a number of penalties, ranging from probation to 36 months in the juvenile correctional facility.

The parties agreed to recommend that the court find substantial and compelling reasons to not require the boy to register as a sex offender, but that will be solely up to Klepper.

After Thursday’s hearing, the mother of the victim told the Journal-World that the last two years had been an ordeal for her family and that she was grateful that the long legal process would soon be over. The plea deal was not ideal, given what her daughter had been through, but it was preferable to a trial where the child would have to relive the experience, she said.

Juvenile trials are rare in Douglas County. A recent one ended in an acquittal, though the teen in that case was soon after charged with another serious felony.

With the plea agreement, the young girl’s mother noted, the boy would at least have a serious felony on his record and would have to face a stiff punishment.