BOULDER COUNTY, Colo. — A man who was charged in the disappearance of a 14-year-old girl who was later found safe in his home pleaded guilty in the case Tuesday morning.
James Dean was arrested in May after the girl failed to attend classes at Manhattan Middle School at 290 Manhattan Drive and was reported missing. Deputies with the Boulder County Sheriff's Office sent out an alert asking the public to be on the lookout for her. They said she had no history of running away, and that it was possible that she was with someone she met online.
The sheriff's office said around 8 p.m. on the day after she was reported missing that the girl was found safe at Dean's home.
Dean faced the following charges:
- Violation of a custody order
- Harboring a minor
- Sexual exploitation of a child
He pleaded guilty Tuesday morning to violation of custody and harboring a minor and was immediately sentenced. For each count, he received 118 days in jail but was granted credit for the 118 days he's already spent behind bars. In addition, he was sentenced to two years of unsupervised probation, court records show.
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The sexual exploitation count was dismissed by the district attorney.
According to an arrest affidavit, investigators went to Dean's home around 4:30 p.m. on the day she was reported missing to look for her, but Dean denied knowing where she was. At that time, deputies noted there were female belongings at the home even though no females lived there.
Around 9 p.m. that night, the girl posted on Facebook, "On my way to be a southern girl! Finally free," the affidavit says. Investigators were able to track the IP address connected to the location of where the post was made, according to the affidavit. It came to Dean's home, the affidavit says. The girl was later found hiding inside the home under a bed, according to the document.
The girl's mother had previously filed for a protection order against Dean on behalf of her daughter, according to court records. In it, she wrote that Dean had "overstepped his bounds," and allowed her daughter to sleep over at his house.
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