Pittsburg County Grand Jury Indicts Child Rapist

Staff and Wire Reports

McALESTER, Oklahoma - A convicted child rapist whose case attracted national attention after he was sentenced to only one year in jail has been indicted on three new counts.

David Harold Earls is accused of three counts of lewd and lascivious or indecent acts with a child under 16, Attorney General Drew Edmondson said. The grand jury indictment was unsealed Wednesday in a Pittsburg County court.

The grand jury accused Earls, 65, of molesting two children, a 5-year-old and a 6-year-old, between May 9, 2008, and July 20, 2008. The indictment alleges Earls touched the children "in a lewd and lascivious manner."

"These charges are different from the charges for which Earls is currently incarcerated," Edmondson said. "Our investigation discovered allegations that have not been prosecuted before now."

Earls was sentenced in May to one year in jail under a plea agreement for the rape of a 4-year-old McAlester girl.

The grand jury was assembled this summer to investigate additional allegations that came forward after Earl's case attracted considerable local and national attention.

"Our investigators talked with witnesses who alleged abuse by Earls going back about 30 years," Edmondson said. "The statute of limitations will prevent these allegations from being prosecuted, but it will help us show a long pattern of behavior that poses a threat to others."

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