Jun 9, 2002 By Amy Karpinsky 2 min read

A Fayette County judge has denied a post-conviction relief request filed by a Fayette County man convicted of corruption of minors and sentenced to serve 21/2 to five years in a state correctional institution. Earlier this year, Richard Allen Maust, 40, of Adah filed a post-conviction relief petition, in which he claimed ineffective assistance of defense counsel and cited 11 examples of that alleged ineffectiveness. Charles Gentile was the defense attorney during the trial. A hearing on the petition was held in March.

After a jury trial in April 2000, Maust was convicted of corruption of minors and later sentenced to the maximum length of time provided by law.

The charges stemmed from a Nov. 26, 1998, incident in which Maust allegedly raped a 6-year-old girl that he was baby-sitting. Although he initially was charged with rape and corruption of minors, the rape charge was withdrawn before the trial started.

Assistant District Attorney Joseph M. George Jr. attempted to reintroduce the charge during the trial, but his motion was denied.

During the trial, the girl testified that she was watching television upstairs with her sister when Maust came upstairs, naked, and raped her. Tests conducted on the child showed no evidence of semen, but an abrasion was found inside the girl’s vagina.

Jurors deliberated for seven hours before convicting Maust. After the trial, the jurors indicated that they couldn’t understand why they were not deliberating on a charge of rape.

A motion to modify the sentence was denied a month after the conviction. An appeal to the state Superior Court was denied in February 2001. The relief petition was filed Jan. 5.

Judge John F. Wagner, who presided over the trial, filed the relief ruling Friday in the Fayette County Clerk of Courts Office.