Area man sentenced for sexual assault
WAYNESBURG – A Nemacolin man convicted in November of sexually assaulting three children was sentenced Thursday to 4 to 10 years in state prison.
Shaun Harden, 37, of 39 Wood Ave., was found guilty Nov. 17 by a jury of fondling an 11-year-old girl and two boys, ages 11 and 12, at a Cumberland Township residence between July and October 2014.
“I’m sorry,” Harden said during his sentencing Thursday. “Please forgive me.”
He was charged in May 2015 with three counts each of felony indecent aggravated assault of a child, indecent aggravated assault of a child under 13, corruption of minors and three misdemeanor charges each of indecent exposure and open lewdness.
All three children testified against him at trial. The girl testified Harden touched her genitals on three separate occasions and forced her to touch his genitals once. The two boys said Harden grinded against them on multiple occasions, including one time while the three of them were together.
Harden and his attorney, Joshua Camson, said Harden’s difficult childhood had much to do with his actions in the case.
Harden claimed he was molested as a youngster. He said he got married at 18 and divorced not long after. He also said he was on disability for seizures that he’s gotten since childhood.
“Mr. Harden has had kind of a rough go of it,” Camson said, before asking for a lighter sentence.
Greene County President Judge Farley Toothman also sentenced him to two years of probation and a $750 fine.
Harden was also sentenced Thursday on another case, in which he was accused of assaulting a man in a wheelchair in March 2015.
Harden pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, terroristic threats, recklessly endangering another person and disorderly conduct Thursday. He told Toothman that the incident started when he was arguing with James Ruffner over a scratch in Ruffner’s daughter’s van.
Harden allegedly threw Ruffner from his wheelchair before attempting to cut the man’s throat with a knife.
In that case, Toothman sentenced him to nine months in jail to be served concurrent to the previous case.