The Butler County District Attorney’s office asked a judge Tuesday, Dec. 3, to add three years of probation to the prison sentence of a Prospect man convicted in 2022 of sexually assaulting his girlfriend’s 13-year-old daughter, who has autism.

Alan Free, 64, was sentenced to 39 to 78 months in state prison by Common Pleas Judge Timothy McCune in September 2022 after a jury found him guilty of felony charges of statutory sexual assault and aggravated indecent assault, and misdemeanor charges of corruption of minors, endangering the welfare of children and indecent assault of a person under 16 years old following a two-day trial in June.

On Tuesday, District Attorney Richard Goldinger told McCune that assistant district attorney Ben Simon filed a motion to resentence Free, arguing the sentence McCune ordered was illegal because it didn’t include three years of probation after Free is released from prison.

Goldinger said Simon’s motion states that three years of probation consecutive to the prison sentence is mandatory under state law for a person convicted of crimes including statutory sexual assault and aggravated indecent assault.

Free’s court-appointed attorney, Brian Farrington, didn’t dispute that three years of probation was mandatory under state law, but argued that a ruling in another case about penalties added following a conviction says those penalties “shall be imposed,” and argued for McCune to consider the “rule of lenity.”

The rule of lenity requires that ambiguities in a criminal statute relating to penalties be resolved in favor of the defendant if it is not contrary to the intent of the law.

McCune said he would review the arguments and issue an order.