WOOD COUNTY, Ohio — A Bowling Green man was convicted of raping a 5-year-old girl and sentenced to eight years in prison, according to a press release on Thursday from the Wood County Prosecuting Attorney.
Gregory Kamer Jr., 38, avoided the possibility of four consecutive life sentences on the charges, however, when his prior conviction was thrown out by the 6th District Court of Appeals, which found that testimony from the victim should not have been admitted at trial. Prosecutor Paul Dobson, in the news release, expressed his displeasure at the outcome, given what his office believed to be the severity of the crime.
"The result of this case is far less than we wanted and far less than he deserves. Unfortunately, between the decision of the court of appeals which would have required us to put that little girl back in front of a jury and the other evidentiary problems their decision created, we were forced to seek a different resolution. Kamer was willing to make that victim get back up on the stand again. Somebody besides her mother had to protect her from the revictimization this would have caused," he wrote.
According to court documents, Kamer raped the victim several times over eight months beginning in December 2018.
He was later indicted in 2019 on eight charges of rape, two charges of gross sexual imposition and two charges of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles.
Kamer was first convicted in the case and sentenced in 2020.
