A 29-year-old Brown County man was sentenced to 10 years in prison and was ordered to register as a sex offender after he is released, concluding a case that’s been open for three years.

On March 13, Christopher B. Williams was sentenced to 10 years, seven executed, with the Indiana Department of Correction beginning immediately, according to a press release from Prosecutor Ted Adams.

Judge Mary Wertz also ordered Williams to register as a sex offender for 10 years after he is released, and ordered him to serve three years on sex offender probation.

Williams was arrested in 2017 after a 14-year-old girl told police that he took her to homes in Bloomington and Brown County, where they did drugs and had sex.

The girl’s mother told police that she had given permission for her daughter to leave their home with Williams the evening of the incident. They were to go to a gas station in Nashville and come straight back and to call her when they arrived in Nashville, a probable cause affidavit states.

She didn’t hear from her daughter. She went to the sheriff’s department at about 12:30 a.m. to report that she had been abducted.

The mother found the girl around 3 a.m., walking near a gas station in Nashville, the police report said.

The girl told police Williams took her to Bloomington and to multiple homes, where she was pressured to do what she thought was “molly,” or ecstasy. She reported hearing Williams say he wanted to see how high he could get her, the affidavit said.

The girl told police she felt “very jittery” and unable to think straight. She later tested positive for methamphetamine, the report said.

She told police that Williams had sex with her outside one of the homes and that he did not stop when she told him no.

A woman who was at one of the homes gave her a ride back to Nashville, the report said.

In an interview with police, Williams admitted to having inappropriate contact with the victim. He also admitted to Detective Brian Shrader that he knew she was underage.

“Detective Shrader and Deputy Andrew Eggebrecht deserve a lot of credit in locating the victim that night, putting together what happened, apprehending Williams, and collecting evidence,” Adams said.

Williams also was charged July 19 last year with two counts of perjury, both Level 6 felonies. Brown County Chief Deputy Brad Stogsdill looked into Williams’ emails with his lawyer and with the Brown County probation department, and found that Williams lied about not knowing what impact a guilty plea would have on his jail credit time.

Adams said that that he argued for more time in prison due to Williams’ criminal history, his probation and bond violations, gang affiliation and the fact that Williams was seen as a trusted adult.

“Williams was a friend of the family. He had known the victim and watched her grow for a long time. He was entrusted with her in May of 2017, and what did he do? He took her to three different flop houses, introduced her to methamphetamine, and then had sexual contact with a minor child,” Adams said.

Williams requested a suspended sentence because his actions were due to his drug addiction, Adams said. He called this “an excellent illustration of the byproduct of continually telling addicts that substance abuse addiction is a disease, thereby absolving addicts of accountability and responsibility.”

He added that there has to be a “happy medium” when thinking about addiction. “On one hand, we ought to leave the old thought of locking addicts up without offering services. That is counterproductive and fiscally imprudent,” he said.

But Adams said he believes it’s also important to not “absolve addicts of all responsibility for their actions, lest we get addicts sexually assaulting children and minors and blaming it all on their addiction. … There needs to be consequences, pure and simple, and we need to protect the innocent and our community.”