photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Shelton Robertson is pictured on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026, in Douglas County District Court.

A Lawrence man will spend three years on probation for a sex crime against an 11-year-old girl, pursuant to a plea agreement with the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office.

The sex offender, Shelton Robertson, was originally charged with rape in the July 2021 incident in which he got into bed with a child and assaulted her, but in June he entered a plea to two counts of aggravated sexual battery — a development that his victim, now 16, said didn’t affect what had really happened.

“Shelton Robertson raped me,” the girl told Judge Amy Hanley, who noted more than once that her sentence was based on an agreement between the parties – an agreement that prosecutor Megan Ahsens had described as “carefully negotiated.”

“Changing the names of the charges does not change what happened to me,” said the girl after regaining her composure at the lectern Tuesday.

Initially she was too choked up to speak, but then found her voice as a supporter rubbed her back.

“He was 18 years old; I was 11,” she said. “He was old enough to know better” — a pointed reference to defense attorney Angela Keck’s assertion that he was “very young” at the time with a still-developing brain that was susceptible to poor decision-making.

The girl lamented the loss of five years of her childhood — from the date of the offense in 2021 until Tuesday, five years later. As other kids were going about their young lives, she said she was mired in “trying to figure out how to live with something that happened to me when I was 11.”

Even now, she said, “no sentence can erase the memories.”

Before the girl spoke, Robertson was given the chance to address the court but declined to do so.

“There’s nothing that I’d like to say, your honor,” he said.

Per the plea agreement, Hanley sentenced Robertson to 34 months in prison for each of two counts of aggravated sexual battery, to run concurrently, but then suspended that to 36 months of probation with Community Corrections with a host of conditions, including participating in a sex offender treatment program. He must also register as a sex offender for 25 years and is subject to lifetime post-release supervision. Hanley additionally ordered that he pay $920 in various costs and fees, though Keck had urged a waiver because Robertson has “started a family” and has one young child and a baby “on the way.”

Hanley thanked the girl for having the courage to speak and told her that what had happened to her was not fair “in any way, shape or form.”

“I wish you peace in moving on,” she said, noting that a “light still shines” in the girl despite what had happened.

Hanley reminded Robertson of the “hefty prison sentence” that hangs over his head should he violate his probation, and she told him that it was his responsibility to shoulder what he had done to the girl.

“It’s your job to remember,” Hanley said. “It’s hers to forget and move on, but not yours. This is something that you have to carry with you the rest of your life.”