Rural Sheldon man draws prison time in rape case
Sep. 18—NEVADA, Mo. — A Vernon County judge sentenced a 20-year-old defendant to consecutive five-year terms at a hearing this week in a rape case, with the court to review the sentence after he has served 120 days in the state's sex offender assessment unit.
Judge James Nichols assessed Robert R. Spoerry the prison time on two counts of second-degree rape at a hearing Monday in Vernon County Circuit Court.
The defendant had pleaded guilty June 17 in a plea deal reducing two of the three counts of first-degree rape that he was facing to second-degree and dismissing the third count.
Spoerry was arrested on the charges in May 2020 after an investigation by the Vernon County Sheriff's Department of a disclosure Spoerry made to the father of a 15-year-old girl that he'd had sex with her multiple times.
The defendant purportedly admitted to an investigator that he had forced himself on the girl 15 to 20 times, often choking her in the process. The girl told an investigator during an interview at the Children's Center in Nevada that Spoerry raped her almost every day for two years.
