Man gets 365 years for raping children

Thank god! This sick bastard really only lived about an hour from me. Yay life in prison!! Woo-hoo!

Justice, for once, is served.

~ Joanna
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Man gets 365 years for raping children

Richard Enyart raped or fondled girls in his North Side home.
Disgusted judge gives maximum sentences on 49 felony counts

Tuesday, February 5, 2008 3:10 AM

By Bruce Cadwallader

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Richard Enyart raped or fondled girls in his North Side home.

His basement was decorated like a children's playground, and his two-story home was available for sleepovers. Richard Enyart became a serial rapist under the noses of unsuspecting parents he had befriended.

Enyart repeatedly drugged, raped or fondled at least six girls, including three of his own relatives, for five years and videotaped many of the encounters, authorities said. The children were 5 to 13 years old.

Columbus police began investigating after a 13-year-old girl disrobing in Enyart's North Side bathroom during an August swim party found a working video camera that had been hidden under towels. She told her parents.

Enyart pleaded no contest yesterday to 49 felonies that included 14 counts of rape and one count of attempted rape -- each carrying a mandatory term of life in prison because of the victims' ages -- and related counts of gross sexual imposition, pandering obscenity, pornography involving minors and tampering with evidence.

Enyart said nothing during the hearing in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, at which prosecutors dismissed 24 counts of his indictment.

Common Pleas Judge Richard S. Sheward gave Enyart the maximum sentences, which totaled 365 years -- a record for a nonhomicide case since sentencing laws were changed in 1996, prosecutors said.

Enyart also was labeled a sexual predator under Ohio law, and Sheward called him the worst sexual predator he had seen in his 34 years of legal experience.

"Most crimes I can understand -- not condone but understand," the judge said. "This is the kind of case I can neither understand nor condone nor comprehend."

Enyart and his attorney, David Thomas, did not deny allegations that he had sexual contact with the girls since 2002. Police said he had spliced pieces of his videos together into "chapters" on DVDs.

Assistant County Prosecutor Daniel Hawkins said police found a book on drug dosages in Enyart's house. Some of the girls appeared to be conscious on the tapes but did not react to the sex acts, Hawkins said.

"The man who is sitting here you can best describe as a child serial rapist, the most dangerous we have ever seen," Hawkins told the judge. "He told police he has a compulsion and that he preyed on these children. The fact that he memorialized these acts on film is sickening."

Enyart invited his nieces over for sleepovers and then "used them as bait, a lure to bring other children, usually neighbors, into his home," Assistant County Prosecutor Jennifer Rausch said. He converted a large section of his basement into a craft/kids area, she said.

Police found about 50 videotapes and 300 DVDs at Enyart's house at 1718 Ward Rd. Sheward declined to view any of the tapes but reacted when he saw police photos of Enyart's basement.

"It looks like a day care," he muttered aloud.

Enyart admitted filming some of the earlier sex acts in a home on Francine Court where he previously lived, prosecutors said.

Enyart, 44 and single, has a bachelor's degree from Columbus State Community College and worked at a local architectural firm.

"He had no prior record before this case, and he held a good job," Thomas told Sheward. "It's mystifying to try to explain his behavior."

Attending yesterday's hearing were the 13-year-old who found the video camera and her aunt; the families of other victims; and the lead detective, Jody Grube. Also in the courtroom were members of a motorcycle club, Bikers Against Child Abuse. One of the victims' fathers knows several of the club members.

Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien was satisfied with Enyart's sentence.

"Our goal was to have him die in prison," O'Brien said.

bcadwallader @dispatch.com