A 25-year-old Marshall man who was found guilty in December in a case involving the sexual assault of two 3-year-olds has been sentenced to spend several decades in state prison.
According to a news release from Saline County Prosecuting Attorney Don Stouffer, Mark T. Hughes was charged with two counts of a Class A Felony for First-Degree Child Molestation and two counts of a Class D Felony for Endangering the Welfare of a Child in the First Degree after authorities determined he transferred an STD to each of the victims sometime in January 2018. Medical professionals and a doctor at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City said there was no possible way the victims could have contracted the disease other than through sexual contact.
Online court documents say a Lafayette County jury took only five hours to find Hughes guilty.
On Tuesday, January 22, Hughes was sentenced to spend 25 years on each of the Child Molestation Felonies and five years on each of the other two counts- with all of the sentences to run consecutively- in the Missouri Department of Corrections.