Gary Alan Roberts
GREENFIELD — A Henry County man accused of raping a woman at a home in eastern Hancock County in mid-October 2020 was sentenced this week in Hancock County Circuit Court.
Gary Alan Roberts, 58, New Castle, pleaded guilty to a Level 3 felony count of rape and was given a nine-year term to be executed in the Indiana Department of Correction and is not allowed to have any contact with the victim during the term.
Roberts will have to register as a sex offender when he is released from prison.
Five other charges, including Level 6 felony counts of battery and intimidation, were dropped as part of the plea agreement, which was approved by Judge Scott Sirk.
According to a probable cause affidavit, the rape took place sometime during the week of Oct. 19, 2020, at the victim’s house after she had allowed Roberts to stay there for a few weeks.
One evening, the woman asked Roberts for one of his Trazodone pills — an antidepressant and sedative — to help her sleep. Later, she awoke to find Roberts on top of her, the affidavit said. She then “zoned out,” and when she woke up in the morning, she was undressed.
Roberts told the woman they had sex, the affidavit said.
The woman told officials she was scared for her life and was afraid to tell anyone what had happened, the report stated. On Nov. 6, 2020, the woman said, Roberts became violent, grabbed her by the arm, threw her against the wall and placed his hands around her neck after she had talked to a friend at her house.
The next day, the woman asked Roberts to leave the home, which he did for a short time before he broke back into the home the same day, forcing the woman to flee by jumping out a window, the affidavit said. Roberts left the house shortly after, the woman told investigators.
Deputies from the Henry County and Hancock County sheriff’s departments investigated the incident.
