GREENFIELD — A Greenfield man was sentenced Thursday to serve six years after admitting to raping a teenage girl he met while working as a Marine Corps recruiter in an Indianapolis high school.
Johnathan L. Bean, 26, pleaded guilty to a Level 3 felony charge of rape last month as part of the plea agreement with prosecutors. He will spend two years in the either Hancock County Jail or in its neighboring low-security Community Corrections facility, and another four years on probation. He’ll also have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Bean’s case is the first rape conviction in Hancock County in a decade, Prosecutor Brent Eaton said.
Bean was a member of the Marine Corps tasked with visiting high schools in Central Indiana and meeting with teens interested in military service. He also was in the early stages of becoming a reserve officer for the Greenfield Police Department when he was arrested, records show.
Bean was arrested a year ago after an Indianapolis teen told police he’d sexually assaulted her at his Greenfield home.
The girl went to Bean’s home several times with friends who were interested in joining the Marine Corps, and she drank alcohol with Bean, according to court documents.
Throughout the night, Bean made sexual comments and assaulted the girl later in the night.
The girl reported the incident to the Greenfield Police Department the next morning.
When it became apparent that a department trainee was involved with the criminal case, Greenfield’s detectives turned the investigation over to the Indiana State Police, and his status with the department was put on hold indefinitely, Chief John Jester said at the time of Bean’s arrest.
Bean originally was charged with three sexual assault charges; two additional counts, a Level 6 felony charge of sexual battery and a Class B misdemeanor of providing alcohol to minors, were dismissed as part of the agreement.
The last rape conviction in Hancock County was in 2006, Eaton said. Twelve other people have faced the charge in the past 10 years, but the charge was dismissed, argued down to a lesser offense or the case was lost at trial, he said.