GREENFIELD — A registered sex offender will serve four years in prison after being caught exchanging inappropriate text messages with an underage girl while serving time on probation for an unrelated sexual assault conviction.
Colten Kendall, 22, 2017 N. Grandison Road, Charlottesville, pleaded guilty this week to one Level 4 felony count of attempt to commit sexual misconduct with a minor, officials said. He was ordered to serve four years in the Indiana Department of Correction followed by two years on probation.
Kendall was convicted of sexual battery in an unrelated case in 2015. He was on probation when police received a tip about a new case, records state.
Kendall violated the terms of his probation when he was accused of another criminal act; as a result, he has been ordered to serve out the remaining 16 months of his original sentence in jail instead of on probation, records state. That 16 months comes in addition to the four-year prison sentence, prosecutors said.
Police first began investigating Kendall in mid-2014 after a woman told Greenfield police officers she’d been sexually assaulted by a man she had just met, according to charging documents.
The woman told police Kendall followed her into a room at a party, turned off the light, took off her clothes and forced her to have sex, according to court documents.
When investigators questioned Kendall, he admitted he engaged in sex acts with the woman but said the encounter was consensual, court documents state.
Kendall was charged with one Class B felony count of rape; one Class D felony count of sexual battery; and Class B felony count of criminal confinement, court records show.
Kendall pleaded guilty to the sexual battery charge as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors and was sentenced to two years’ probation, records show.
The remaining two counts were dismissed, including the rape charge after prosecutors determined there was not enough evidence of the crime, officials said.
While serving his sentence, Kendall started exchanging sexual text messages with an underage girl, investigators said.
The girl’s mother called police after discovering crude text messages from Kendall on her daughter’s cellphone, court documents state. The exchange included naked photographs of Kendall and notes asking the girl to engage in sex acts, documents state.
Kendall was arrested a second time in January 2016 but refused to speak with police during the investigation.
He was charged in the second case with one Level 4 felony count of attempt to commit sexual misconduct with a minor; one Level 5 felony count of sexual misconduct with a minor; one Level 5 felony count of child solicitation; and one Level 6 felony count of dissemination of matters harmful to minors, records show.
Kendall pleaded guilty to the Level 4 felony count; the remaining charges were dropped as part of the plea agreement.