State court denies appeal of LaBelle child rapist
The state Superior Court has upheld the conviction of a LaBelle man serving up to 78 years in prison for raping a 4-year-old girl.
In an opinion filed on Wednesday by Judge Carl A. Solano, the court affirmed the decision of Fayette County Judge Joseph M. George Jr. to deny the appeal of Fred Augusta Mitchell, 49.
Mitchell was found guilty in Fayette County Court in 2014 of rape, rape of a child, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a person less than 16 years old, two counts of aggravated indecent assault and two counts of indecent assault.
In 2013, Mitchell’s 4-year-old victim was taken to a doctor for an ear infection and eventually disclosed to the doctor and her grandmother that she had been sexually assaulted by Mitchell.
The Herald-Standard does not identify victims of sexual assault.
Mitchell was sentenced to a mandatory minimum term of 20 to 40 years for rape of a child, and 10 to 20 years each for the involuntary deviate sexual intercourse charges.
After his first appeal, the Superior Court vacated Mitchell’s sentence, which was imposed under the mandatory minimum guidelines.
In March 2015, Mitchell was resentenced to serve 39 to 78 years in prison.
On his appeal following the resentencing, Mitchell claims his public defender was ineffective for failing to request a court-appointed psychological expert for his hearing to determine whether he was a sexually-violent predator and waiting until the day of the trial to view video evidence of his victim’s interview with a forensic interviewer.
George denied the appeal and Solano agreed that Mitchell failed to prove that his counsel didn’t inform him his right to a court-appointed psychological expert as well as the claim of video evidence when the video was consistent with the other evidence.
Mitchell remains lodged in the State Correctional Institution at Albion.